Firestorm: Rise Of Judgement X (A Streets of RageVirtua Fighter Fic)
by Stefan422
Summary: When a new nightmarish organization arises composed of The Syndicate and Judgement Six, Firestorm, along with Akira Yuki, and his niece, Melanie Chan take to the streets of rage to bring peace back to Wood Oak City. But will this new organization be too powerful, even for their combined efforts? Find out as they battle... Judgement X. (A/N: Melanie Chan is my OC)
1. Chapter 00: Intro

Chapter 00: Intro

 **Intro**

Some time after the team known as Firestorm had once again defeated Mr.X and destroyed his syndicate, the aforementioned villain had been recently been in a partnership with the criminal organization hell bent on taking over the world - known as Judgement Six.

Improvements were made.

Heroic souls were corrupted.

Mr. X and Judgement both knew that together, they would not be brought down so easily.

* * *

 _ **A/N: This story is going to be strongly based off the Streets of Rage games, but it will also include some elements from Matthew Drury's Streets of Rage Saga series of novels, story elements from the Virtua Fighter games and some original stuff from me. And I am also giving the head of Judgement Six the name "Judgement".**_


	2. Chapter 01: Back To The Streets (Part 1)

Chapter 01: Back To The Streets (Part One)

 **Back To The Streets (Part One)**

The skies of Wood Oak City were now an amazing work of art - painted a mix of pale indigo, and bright magenta - a stunning combination that made up the perfect time of day: sunset. Everybody seemed to enjoy such beautiful coloured sunsets. It gave off a vibe of peacefulness - which was always appreciated in Wood Oak City, seeing as crime and chaos wasn't a rare experience for it's residents.

Axel Stone stood at the window as he stared through the impressive sunset broodingly. If anyone needed to see such a calming sight in this city, it was him. X was back. Not very good news, but it got even worse when he found out that the criminal organization Judgement Six had formed a partnership with him. He narrowed his eyes as he continued to stare out of the window. He'd moved back to the city since the last attack of The Syndicate in order to be closer to his teammates. The suburbs were nice, but they were a bit far from Wood Oak City even by car. Before he moved back, he'd normally have to take the train just to get to the city in less than two hours.

Axel had gotten rid of many thugs that were normally affiliated with The Syndicate in the past, as well as the organization, but the fact that Mr.X had been working with someone else was still a bad sign. But really, it was _who_ their nemesis joined forces with that had made this situation especially dire. Namely, Judgement Six. They had connections worldwide, skilled in creating weaponry, and they had a goal in mind: World domination. What X, someone who took things slower by wanting to gain control of Wood Oak City before trying to claim the _entire world_ would have wanted to do with them was beyond Axel, but he was certain of was - he wasn't going to let these guys win without a fight.

He was snapped out of his thinking when he heard a window in the TV room shatter, and the sound of bodies thudding on the floor shortly afterwards. He spun around from the window to check out the scene, also seeing Akira Yuki, owner of Yuki Budokan, do the same, who had been quietly standing on the rug in the center of the room, deep in thought, contemplating what the immediate future would bring prior to hearing the noise.

The two dojo instructors ran into Axel's TV room to find not one, but _two_ completely shattered windows, CD racks knocked over and 5 Signals. Two red, two green, and one grey. They had been digging around the room, likely searching for money. The 5 punks must not have known whose house they had broken into, due to the looks of surprise written across their faces when they were met with the murderous stares of Akira and Axel, two strong men who knew martial arts like the backs of their hands. Yet nobody in the room uttered a single word during the whole incident.

However, the Signals' surprised looks were replaced by cocky sneers as they rushed the heroes. The Grey Signal was apparently feeling especially cocky as he laughed and lunged at Akira who gave a loud yell as he rammed his elbow into the punk's ribcage. The Grey Signal screamed at the top of his lungs in agony, vomiting blood, and collapsing to the floor shortly after. The series of noises had effectively broke the silence.

" _Holy shit_." One of the Red Signals commented as he looked at his fallen gang member, undoubtedly unconscious. Maybe even dead.

"So, Syndicate Scum," Akira started, "Are you going to leave peacefully after seeing what I've done to your associate?..."

"Or will we have to make you leave the hard way?" Axel finished, not breaking his stare at the remaining gang members.

They answered his question with truly contemptuous grins as they rushed the two men.

"Thought so." Axel snapped, jumping into the air and throwing out a dropkick that connected with a Red Signal's jaw, sending him spinning to the carpeted floor as blood sprayed from his mouth. Upon landing, the blonde hero was roughly grabbed by the arm by the remaining Red Signal, who was undoubtedly preparing to throw him. Before he could, however, Axel's foot met his side with crushing force, causing several of his ribs to crack. Now free from the thug's grip, Axel quickly drew his fist back and sent it straight into the thug's face, giving him a dark purple bruise where his broken nose dripped with blood. He sank to the floor, unconscious.

Over where Akira was, the two Green Signals attempted to come at him from both sides and beat him into either submission or death. A common goal for Syndicate goons, but by the smiles on their grimy faces, Akira could tell that they were planning the latter for him. The white-clad martial artist was standing completely still as the two approached him slowly. Axel silently looked on, with an idea of an attack Akira might use to incapacitate the Signals.

"I've got this." Akira told Axel concentratedly, as the two remaining Signals approached Akira, paying Axel no mind as they prepared to launch themselves at their target. To anyone who didn't know Akira, the scene would've resembled an unfortunate day for a baby gazelle, soon to be mauled to a gruesome death by two hungry tigers. But in actuality, it was quite the opposite. _Akira_ was the tiger.

"Say goodnight!" Shouted one of the Signals as both of them finally lunged at Akira, who thrust his arms out at his sides with a stomp and a fierce yell, stopping the two dead in their tracks. Akira felt their ribcages collapse as his palms rammed into their chests. It was clear that they both had been killed. Akira put his hands infront of him in a relaxing Martial Arts position as he closed his eyes.

"Nice." Axel praised, a tiny smile on his lips.

"Your skills were excellent as well." Akira nodded. "Normally the attack that I used would have sent them flying into the wall, given how weak they were. But I did not wish to do any further damage to your house, so I used a technique that focuses on keeping my arms completely stiff."

It was Axel's turn to nod. "Thanks. I appreciate it. Lucky we heard them before they could do any major damage, but still..." He replied, seething as he surveyed the damage. CD racks lay toppled on the floor, and some of the discs themselves were cracked in half from being carelessly stepped on by the Signals, but most were still in fine condition. The windows were a different story, however. Since they were completely shattered, Axel rubbed his chin in thought, wondering if he had some spare wooden boards in his basement to block up the window panes until he could get them fixed. His thinking was interrupted when he heard loud footsteps running down the stairs, causing him and Akira to turn their heads toward the staircase.

Down the steps came the daughter of Pai Chan, and the niece of Akira: Melanie Chan. She was an American sixteen year old girl with medium-length, wavy, blonde hair that came ever so slightly past her shoulders. She had sharp, emerald green eyes that complimented the small line of freckles that went horizontally across the bridge of her nose. Though they were barely noticeable, and could only be seen at up close. Additionally, she had a gap between her two top front teeth. But it didn't tarnish her smile at all, instead, the space gave her smile a certain charm whenever it was flashed. She had a toned figure, a flat stomach, and stood at an average height. Not to tall nor too short. Her mother's pride and joy. Some time after the Fifth World Fighting Tournament, Pai felt a strong desire to start a family. So she paid a visit to an orphanage that she donated to regularly and told the woman at the desk that she wanted a child. After undergoing tests, filling out paperwork amongst other things, Melanie was officially under her custody, and therefore, her daughter. Melanie was in utter shock that Pai Chan, the queen of Kung-fu films, wanted to adopt her. Her and her best friend Eileen were huge fans of her work. She warmed quickly to the Chinese Virtua Fighter, and got along with her rather well for the most part. They might not have been biologically related, but they'd become so close that they treated each other otherwise. The main difference between them was demeanor. While Pai was elegant, ladylike, and graceful, Melanie was the complete opposite. One could say Melanie was the poster girl for tomboys. She loved dirt biking, she was an avid gamer, avoided makeup and nail polish like the Black Plague, and was rambunctious. Appearance always helped too, as her hair and diastema worked in tandem to even further bring out her tomboyishness as well as her natural beauty. Currently, she was wearing a pair of jeans, electric green Nike running sneakers, and an unzipped dark blue hoodie partially concealing a light grey graphic tee that said " _Pretty Tomboy_ " in white graffiti font.

Melanie's eager eyes scanned the room. Once she spotted the unconscious bodies of the Signals sprawled out on the floor, the minor damage done to Axel's property, and then to the shattered windows, she then turned her gaze to the two men.

"Where's the fight?...Did I miss it? Did I _seriously_ miss it?!" The teen asked them in utter disbelief, letting her mouth hang open slightly at the end of her sentence.

A small smile came onto Axel's lips. "Afraid so, kiddo."

" _Fuck_!" She hissed in frustration. "My first chance to fight in Wood Oak City and I miss it!"

"Don't sweat it. You'll definitely have plenty of other chances to beat down some thugs, trust me." Axel assured, bringing the girl's winning smile back to her face.

" _Alright_!" She said happily. "...I was listening to my music full blast and managed to hear the end of the fight when the song ended, heh heh." She explained with an additional chuckle.

"Like I said, It's all good. You didn't miss much, really. The guys that broke in were weak as hell."

"Well I'm glad I didn't miss that much! When are we going out?" Melanie asked.

"Tonight. When everybody gets here and you're properly briefed."

" _Suh-weet_!" She cheered, throwing a fist in the air. "I can't wait to get out on the streets and kick some ASS!" Even the ever-stoic-faced Akira couldn't suppress a tiny smile at his niece's enthusiasm. She slightly reminded him of himself, due to the fact that she had a burning passion for fighting, and that Akira always sought a good fight from within his opponents. Different, of course. But similar all the same.

"Remember to correctly use all of the techniques that your mother taught you, Melanie. We're going up against pure scum. A false move could mean death." Akira warned, with utmost seriousness in his tone.

"Don't worry, Uncle Akira. Mom trained me real well. I wouldn't dream of getting killed out there. Trust me." She said with confidence. She then turned to Axel and started lightly bouncing side to side on the balls of her feet. "So what're we gonna kick the shit out of? Robots? Ninjas? Mutants?"

Axel smiled again. This kid just knew how to make you grin. "All of the above. Aside from the usual street punks, we're going to be fighting robots, ninjas, and likely a few mutants."

Melanie stopped bouncing as her jaw dropped. "Oh my God! Axel, you're serious?!" She asked wide-eyed, causing Axel to nod.

A full-on ear to ear grin seized control of Melanie's lips. She couldn't stop smiling as she threw her fists in the air in pure excitement from hearing what she would eventually face. "That's ill! It's like we just jumped into a comic book!"

"We will be facing ninjas?" Akira suddenly asked.

Axel nodded. "Yep. X hires a lot of them. Why?"

"Nothing bad, It was simply unexpected given what I've seen from this city so far. But nevertheless, I look forward to it as well. I believe it will be a highly beneficial experience."

Axel raised an eyebrow. "How so?"

"My rival, Kage-Maru, is a Hagakure ninja. He has bested me in several of the World Fighting Tournaments. I train not only to improve my own abilities, but to also prove myself to be better than him as a fighter. With more experience in fighting ninjas, I will have a better chance defeating him."

Axel nodded in understanding. He'd heard slight mentions of the World Fighting Tournament before, but he never really followed them. Maybe now he'd have to start watching them to check out the other interesting rivalries that the other fighters had. "I see. Akira, I wish you good luck in your mission." He said earnestly.

"Thank you."

After their exchange, Melanie piped up. "So, this Mr.X guy," She started walking over to the couch and taking a seat. She recalled hearing his name being mentioned a few times here and there since they arrived, and had a pretty good idea of who he was, but just wanted to check to be sure. "I'm guessing he's the dude that J6 joined up with? I could kinda tell by how you talked about him."

Axel nodded. "A highly influential crime lord that wants nothing more than to make this city his. He's the reason those guys broke in here." He said, nodding toward the downed Signals. "They're Syndicate thugs. He's corrupted this city and even the police force before. The one my friends and I used to be on. Like I said, they were corrupt, so they didn't do anything about the crimes going on, so we quit the force and took care of X ourselves. Killed him. And ever since then, he's been resurrected again and again trying the same stuff. And the corruption seems to get worse each time he's resurrected." Axel explained, shaking his head toward the end.

Melanie nodded, now having received the full story, and now aware of the cycle of the heroes taking to the streets and dealing with X personally after everytime he was brought back to life. "What does he look like?" She asked curiously.

"Let me paint a picture for you. He's in his late 50's I'm sure, he's pretty tall - I'd say about 6'11, always in an olive green coloured business suit, he's somehow still got long hair, although the hairline is starting to recede. He's also got eyebrows so thick you can barely see his eyes, and a butt chin. And for a weapon the guy carries around a Tommy Gun.

Melanie's eyes flashed bright with excitement as she pounded her fist into her palm before cracking her knuckles. "I'm gonna have fun kicking his ass!" But then another question came to mind. "But from how you talked about him resurrecting again and again I thought he was some kind of supernatural being or something. How does he keep coming back to life?"

"That we don't know yet. Hopefully though, we'll be able to find out."

Just then Melanie's iPhone vibrated in her pocket. "One sec. It's probably my mom checking in on me." She looked at the caller ID and saw she was right. She answered the call and put the phone to her ear.

"Hey Mom!"

"Hi sweetheart!" Pai said, happy to hear her daughters voice. While Melanie was in Wood Oak City, Pai had been on a training trip with Lau. "How are you?"

"Awesome! This city is one of the greatest places on Earth and I haven't even done any fighting yet!"

Pai arched an eyebrow and smirked. "Really? How so?"

"Axel says we're gonna fight robots, ninjas, and some mutants!"

"Hold it right there." She said firmly. "He said you're going to be fighting robots, ninjas and _mutants?"_ She asked, wondering exactly what her daughter had gotten into.

"Only a few mutants he said, but yeah, mostly robots and ninjas."

"... _ **What?**_ I thought he said you were going to be fighting street thugs. That's what your uncle told me." She said feeling her anger start to rise, as she felt she had been lied to. It had taken some convincing on Melanie's part to accompany Akira to Wood Oak City, which Pai eventually gave into, after Akira told them that he would be assisting Firestorm in fighting thugs and bringing down Judgement Six and another organization who had formed an alliance with them. But now she thought that her daughter had purposely given the task a less treacherous image just so she would agree to allowing her to go.

"No no no! We are!" The teen said frantically, trying to calm her mother's nerves upon hearing the anger in her voice. "We're fighting the thugs also, the other stuff will come out as we get deeper into Mr.X's territory I'm assuming." She tossed a look Axel's way that said 'Right?' He nodded to confirm this. On the other end, Pai had arrived at the conclusion that this _Mr. X_ was who J6 had teamed up with.

"I can handle it, Mom. You're training me to be one of the worlds greatest fighters, after all." She said with a smile in her voice, causing Pai to smile slightly as well.

"I...well...alright." The Chinese fighter sighed finally, all traces of anger vanished from her tone. "I suppose if you're this confident in your abilities, then I won't try to stop you from helping out Firestorm." This caused Melanie to wordlessly beam. She was glad that her mother trusted her with this sort of thing. She was new to the hero thing, after all. On the other end, Pai decided to keep talking since her daughter said nothing more, though she figured that was because she was too excited to form coherent words. "But you'd better be in one piece when you come home, young lady."

This caused Melanie to roll her eyes again, the grin remained on her face. "Count on it, Mom!"

"And did Axel say you could call him by his first name?" Pai asked, taking on a classic motherly tone.

This caused the teen to roll her eyes. "Yes, _Mom_." She answered, soaking the word 'Mom' in the traditional teenage tone."He said I could call everybody by their first names." This elicited a chuckle from Axel.

"Well alright." She said with a chuckle. "Is your uncle around?"

"Yeah he's right over there." She replied, turning her head in Akira's direction. "Wanna talk to him?"

"Sure. Bye! I love you!"

"Love you too, Mom! Good luck with the training!" And with that, she handed her phone to Akira.

"Hello, Pai."

"Hello, Akira." Pai greeted with a small smile in her voice.

"How has your training been going?" Akira asked, curious to know how his friend had been faring so far on the first day of the trip.

"Good. I'm becoming stronger in many different aspects. Not just in combat. Mentally as well."

"That is wondrous news, Pai. Become as strong as you can, and remember, even when you think you've perfected a technique, there is always room for improvement."

Pai nodded on her end. "I will keep that in mind, Akira." There was a small pause before they started talking again. "What time did the plane land?"

"About 4:00. The flight was alright, I suppose."

"That's good. I would've asked Melanie, but it was better to ask you. I didn't want to ask her something that involved numbers on her first day arriving in Wood Oak City. You know how she is. Dyscalculia and whatnot - which reminds me, I really don't want her slacking on her math practice while she's down there, so can you quiz Melanie whenever you guys are taking a break? It would really help her."

"As you wish. It shall be done. Exactly how severe is her Dyscalculia? I've heard that people with said condition are incapable of differentiating their left from their right in the worst cases."

"Her's is nowhere near that bad. She can easily tell left from right, but she'll still have difficulty doing math and reading analog clocks. The digital ones are slightly easier for her, but she'll still struggle with them. She's also going to need help with counting money, so if she needs to buy anything, I may need you to accompany her to help her pay, depending on what it is she's buying."

"Understood." Akira responded. He never imagined he'd be in this position. Perhaps he'd been so consumed with his training that he hadn't thought of possibly becoming an uncle before. Nevertheless though, he was proud to be one. He hadn't really known Melanie that long either, but loved her with all his heart, and was more than willing to help her with her learning disorder. "I assume you must be getting back to training with your father, so I will talk to you later."

"Before you go, I wish you good luck with defeating Judgement Six. Not that you'll need it. You are an excellent fighter. Axel knew what he was doing when he requested you to assist his team."

Akira nodded. "Thank you, Pai."

Pai smiled on her end. "Of course. Goodbye."

"Goodbye." And with that, he hung up and handed his niece her phone.

"So Melanie, what fighting style do you use?" Axel asked by the staircase, curious to know how she fought. Something between a smirk and a regular smile crossed Melanie's features.

"Well, I do Mizongquan like my mom, but here's the catch." She started, eager to inform him of the second part of what she had to say. "I kinda thought Mizongquan was way too girly, so I replaced all those palm strikes with punches. I kept the movements, though. My own personal take on the fighting style." She smiled, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her hoodie.

Axel nodded with interest. He had seen unique fighting styles throughout his team, ranging from Judo that used punches and kicks often, to breakdancing, and it would appear that he'd be seeing another one very soon.

"That's pretty cool. It'll be interesting to see the damage it'll do to X's goons."

She grinned as her hands twitched with pure excitement. She loved showing people this for the first time. "Wanna know what else I can do?"

"Sure." Axel nodded, judging by the girl's expression that she had something in mind.

"Alright, uh...do you have any debris lying around that I can use to show you my move on?"

"I don't think so. But there's a dead tree stump just outside that shattered window." He said, jerking his thumb towards the stump. It was fairly wide and tall for just a stump, and for a minute, Melanie wondered what kind of tree had even been there before dismissing the thought. It wouldn't matter in a few moments anyway.

"That'll work!" She said before backing all the way to the wall behind her. Axel looked on confusedly.

"Axel, you may want to stand aside." Akira told Axel, who then got a pretty good idea of what she was about to do. The blonde dojo instructor did as he was advised as he continued to watch her. Melanie furrowed her brows and smirked in effortless concentration as she held her hands at her side in a 'cupping the hands' motion, as a ball of bright cyan energy began to form between her palms, creating a light whirring noise. Once it had charged to a desirable anount almost instantly, she thrusted her palms out infront of her with precise aim at the tree stump, forcing out the sphere of energy and sending it speeding straight through the shattered windowpane and toward her target. Upon impact, the stump exploded into thousands of woodchips as slight cyan residue from the energy attack dissipated and dissolved into the air, resembling embers over a campfire.

Axel whistled, clearly stunned. The way she had such accurate aim was incredible. She hadn't hit anything in his house when she projected the sphere of energy from her palms. The speed and ferocity of the energy itself was breathtaking as well. If that could do such damage to a sturdy and sizable wood stump that had been rooted to the ground, one could only imagine what would become of the thugs that caught the wrath of this attack. The fact that she was even able to do such a thing was a sign that she fought and trained often. Axel had actually seen Blaze perform a similar attack many times before, though Blaze's move resembled something of a small beam rather than a projectile, and the hand motion she did for it was considerably different from Melanie's.

"Damn. That was impressive to say the least." He started, staring out at the remains of the stump. A few of which had flown into his house, but he wasn't too concerned about that. "What was that energy _made_ of anyway?"

"My chi. I didn't even know I had it in me to shoot it out of my hands at first. One day, mom was training me on the attack where you thrust your palms out like I did for a double palm strike, and then it just happened outta nowhere!" She laughed.

"Can your mother do that too?"

Melanie shook her head. "No. But she did teach me how to develop it. When I shot my first ball of chi, it was a lot smaller and it burned out before it could even hit anything. Luckily, I'm a fast learner so it only took a few weeks to make it alot stronger."

"Really? _Wow_." Axel remarked, surprised at how fast she was able to learn how to manipulate chi. "You know, Blaze does energy attacks too, but hers are -"

Axel was cut off by the sharp and loud sound of the doorbell ringing, causing the three of them to look to the door.

"Maybe that's her and the rest of the team right now." He said, walking towards the door and opening it with the others close behind. Axel had been partially correct - it wasn't Blaze, but another member of Firestorm stood at the door. A towering wrestler - 6'8, with blue pants that had a thunderbolt design horizontally along the legs, and red boots, and a distinctive scar over his eye. None other than Max Thunder. A smile crossed both men's faces as they greeted one another.

"Hey buddy! Good to see you!" Thundered the wrestlers voice as she reached out to shake Axel's hand, which was tiny to Max.

"Heh. You too, man." The blonde man returned the greeting, shaking Max's gigantic hand. "Come on in."

Melanie's jaw dropped once again. She couldn't believe who was in the same house as her.

"Ho...ly... Shit! Max Thunder! _The_ Max Thunder!" She teen exclaimed. She was a fan of wrestling, and with the Canadian wrestler, Wolf Hawkfield as a close second, Max had been her all-time favorite wrestler ever since her early childhood. She'd get hype the moment the announcers said that he would be wrestling, and for good reason. Max was one of the most famous wrestlers of all time. Additionally, one of the strongest. With each Atomic Drop successfully landed, she often found herself wincing in sympathetic pain for his victims, as they stood no chance whatsoever in trying to beat him. He was undefeated throughout his entire career, but it wasn't just that that made him so awesome to Melanie. It was his personality that also helped separate him from most of the wrestlers on TV. Max loved a good fight, and was confident without sounding boastful, and had always been a rather good sport.

Max laughed at Melanie's comment upon seeing him before she turned to Axel.

"Wait, you guys know each other?! How?!" The blonde girl asked, absolutely eager to know how.

"Been best buds ever since high school." Max answered with a smile.

"Really?" She asked in shock, turning to Axel, who nodded with a smile, remembering all the crazy times they had in their teenage years.

"So, I take it you're a fan?" Max inquired raising an eyebrow, the smirk never leaving his face.

"Totally! That time where you took down Abadede was badass! I mean, the dude is a million-foot monster and you made it look like it was no big deal!"

Max laughed, flattered by the girl's compliment. "Then how about a picture? It'll be worth a thousand words, as they say." He suggested, causing Melanie's emerald eyes light up.

"Really?! Thanks _SO_ much! That'd be awesome!" She said, digging through her pocket to grab her phone.

"Here, I'll take it." Axel said with a smile, willing to take the picture for Melanie, who tossed her phone to him. The blonde dojo instructor aimed the lens at the two so that they were both in focus.

"Alright...uh..." Max paused, remembering he didn't know her name. "Sorry, didn't get your name, kiddo."

"M-Melanie. Melanie Chan." She stuttered out, still slightly jittery from excitement.

"Alright then, Melanie, ready?" The wrestler asked, looking at the girl.

"Ready!" She replied with an eager nod, before turning to face Axel who held the phone up. Max did the same. They posed in a position where Max stood arms folded, with Melanie leaning up against his large elbow using her hand. After they smiled for the camera, Axel laughed and took the picture, grinning as he saw the two of them.

"Awesome! This is gonna be my screensaver!" She shouted after looking at the picture, saving it under many different folders on her phone just to be sure it didn't get lost. She would've thrown it up on Facebook or Instagram right about now, but unlike Eileen, she wasn't a big fan of social media, and didn't really use it.

Akira eyed Max from where he stood. Outside of the World Fighting Tournaments, he hadn't known any wrestlers, so he hadn't heard of Max, or known of his exploits outside of defeating this Abadede, which he just managed to overhear from his niece just a moment ago. He wanted to see if he was truly the legend that people apparently saw him as, so he decided to approach the large wrestler with intentions of challenging him to a fight.

"Pardon me," Akira started, walking up to where he stood. "My name is Akira Yuki. May I ask something of you?" This caused Melanie to roll her eyes and chuckle, as she knew exactly what Akira wanted from Max.

"Sure." Max replied with a tiny smile. Judging by Akira's way of speech, his facial expression, and his attire, Max figured that Akira probably wasn't going to ask for an autograph. However, he did have a slight idea of what he was going to ask.

"I was wondering if you were interested in a fight sometime. Perhaps when we take a resting period? I seek the true power within my soul and I do so through battle." Akira explained.

Max nodded, his prediction confirmed. "Sure. I'm always in the mood to fight. Besides, you look like you'd be a challenge."

"Excellent. If you are as good as my niece says, it will be an interesting fight."

"Oh, he is, Uncle Akira." Melanie put in. "You're gonna have to pull out all the stops to beat him! Oh! That reminds me...how come you're here, Max? Just dropping by to say hi to Axel?"

Max let out a small chuckle. "He didn't tell you? I'm part of the team! And plus, Blaze said something about there being an " _even more dire threat than before."_ There was no way I was sitting this one out!" He said, cracking his knuckles, producing several loud cracking noises.

Melanie was breathless. "Oh my God! You're on our team?! That's beyond awesome! I can't believe I'm gonna be fighting alongside _the_ Max Thunder!" She threw her fists in the air. This day only seemed to get better and better! She'd met and gotten a picture with Max Thunder, was going to fight on the same team as him, and to think, more was still to come! She still hadn't been out on the streets yet!

"Speaking of the team, where are the rest of the guys, Axel?" Max asked his friend. They weren't late per se, they all usually went out into the streets when it started to get really dark out, and right now it was the tail end of sunset. Still not quite _dark_ dark out. But still, Max was curious as to where the other three members might've been. Blaze was usually one of the first ones present.

"Not sure, actually. But wherever they are, they should be on their way right now, or at least soon." Axel answered, walking over to the window, and staring outside it, as if trying to see for himself. "But in the meantime, wanna help me block up the windows in the TV room?" He asked, turning back around to face Max.

"Sure. What happened?"

"Punk attack."

"Of course." Max said with a smile.

 _ **To Be Continued in Part 2!**_


	3. Chapter 02: Back To The Streets (Part 2)

Chapter 02: Back To The Streets (Part Two)

 **Back To The Streets (Part Two)**

 ** _At the local café..._**

The sun had now completely sunk down in the sky, now leaving it a deep cerulean blue, which somehow still gave off a calm overglow in the troubled city. It set the mood for people who were going to the café for food, or simply passing by. Occasionally, cars blaring rap music would speed down the street, which only helped to add to the classic city aura, especially when complimented by the subtle wind that delicately grazed the area.

Blaze Fielding, the leader and founder of Firestorm, was seated at one of the tables outside of the establishment, lightly sipping a caramel-vanilla milkshake. She was in a normal attire for herself; a red tube top, matching colored skirt, dark blue fighting gloves, red converse sneakers, and of course, her trademark orange leggings that beautifully hugged her strong legs. Accompanying her at the small, round table, was Adam Hunter, with a ¾ eaten hamburger infront of him, and his brother, Sammy "Skate" Hunter, drinking a large raspberry flavoured slushie thirstily. The three of them had stopped for food on their way to Axel's house for the briefing. The three heroes made conversation as they finished off the remains of their items.

"I swear, guys, Axel's gotta be one of the most awesome people on the planet. He got Akira-fucking-Yuki to join our team! He's one of the worlds greatest fighters!" The teen exclaimed. This made Adam look at his brother and raise an eyebrow.

"One of the world's greatest fighters?" Adam parroted, taking a bite of his hamburger.

Skate nodded. "Yeah bro, he's a regular at the World Fighting Tournaments. Not just any fighting tournament. J6 only accepts the best of the best to compete in them. Of course, J6 won't be running the tournaments much longer. What with them starting to show their true colors by teaming up with X and all. But thankfully, the tournament's still gonna live on, cause they've got tons of sponsors waiting in line to snatch the rights to it."

"I see. If he's one of the worlds greatest fighters, then he should definitely be an asset to the team in taking down X and this J6." Adam said with a nod.

"Actually," Blaze started, getting the attention of both brothers. "It's not just him that will be showing up. Apparently, he's bringing his niece along with him. Melanie Chan - I'm pretty sure." She finished, rubbing her chin, wondering if she'd had the right name. This caused Skate to perk up.

"Whoa!" He raised his eyebrows. "Pai's got a kid? When did this happen?! I mean, she's never talked about having a daughter on TV..." He trailed off, figuring she was probably adopted and at least 13 since she was being brought along to the team. He became a member of the team at that age, after all. He'd turned 15 a few days ago, but it seemed that age wouldn't ever take a toll on his ever-present, trademark sense of humour.

"Dunno." Blaze shrugged. "I guess celebrities are really quiet about that st-"

She was interrupted in mid-sentence when her phone buzzed atop the table, creating a loud rattling sound due to her hard plastic case vibrating on the table. She picked it up and hit the power button, taking it out of sleep mode.

 _ **AS: Where r u**_

 _ **BF: At the café with adam and sk8 we're getting ready 2 leave**_

 _ **AS: Ok**_

 _ **BF: Akira's niece's name is melanie chan right**_

 _ **AS: Yea**_

 _ **AS: She's 16 in case sk8 wants 2 kno :)**_

 _ **BF: XD**_

Blaze looked up from her phone, smiling slightly at what she'd just saw. "That was Axel. He wanted to know where we were, I told him we were just wrapping up. He also said Melanie is _16_." She informed, looking directly at Skate and wiggling her eyebrows playfully. She saw Skate as something of a ladies man at times, ever since they'd met, she noticed him having a hard time keeping his eyes off her. And whenever they went to discos or nightclubs while cleaning up the streets, she often saw him "checking out" some of the dancing women.

Skate seemed to perk up at this. He quickly directed his gaze from his drink to Blaze upon hearing this. " _Really?!"_ Then he tried to hide his excitement after seeing the grins that Blaze and Adam were giving him. "Well...um...that's cool, I guess."

"Looks like you're developing a crush already, little bro!" Adam sneered teasingly.

"N-nah, not really." Skate tried to brush it off with a cool demeanor, but Blaze wasn't letting him off that easy. She smirked as she rested her cheek in her palm, setting her elbow on the table.

"Famous last words. Next thing you know, you'll be buying her flowers."

Skate responded with a nervous laugh of sorts before quickly trying to change the subject. "Yeah so uh, should we go now? I'm pretty sure the rest of the team's waiting for us."

"I guess you're right, Skate." Blaze said with a smile. "C'mon guys, let's go."

Having had all finished their food, they got up, and started on their way to Axel's, tossing their empty containers and plates in a nearby trash bin. It couldn't have been more than 4 paces when they heard a shrill female voice call out, disrupting the calm mood.

" _HEY_!"

The three stopped in unison, wondering if that was for them.

"YEAH, YOU THREE!" The female voice called out again. The three vigilantes traded glances before slowly and confusedly turning 180 degrees, wondering what this was all about. They hadn't done anything wrong, so why was this woman apparently so angry at them?

They quickly found out the reason why they were called upon. Upon turning, they saw three generic-looking goons standing menacingly in a triangle formation. Their clothes were all disheveled. The head one had a punkish aura about her, what with her short, purple-dyed hair and piercings in her nose and both ears. She was twirling a spear-point knife in one of her gloved hands. One of the other ones behind her was a blonde, shaggy-haired male, unarmed, with bangs so long they came past his eyes. The remaining hoodlum was a brunette who also had short hair, and a bandage wrapped diagonally around her head, covering her left eye. Her one, cold eye narrowed as she idly swung her long chain. All three of them had pure murder in mind for the heroes.

"Syndicate punks." Adam scoffed, narrowing his eyes. "Don't you people ever learn?"

"Shut it, Hunter!" The lead one barked. "We're putting you three in your places RIGHT NOW!"

"And I thought I had jokes!" Skate laughed. "As if you three morons could take us down!"

"Heh. Just you wait, kid." The lead one snarled, waving the knife at the three of them. "The bosses are gonna be paying us the big bucks for handing your corpses over on a silver platter, and more when we take care of the rest of your little team!"

Blaze sighed and shook her head. "All you punks are the same when it comes down to it, you know. You think you're all that, then before you know what hit you, we've knocked you on your arses." She then assumed her fighting stance, with Adam and Skate following suit.

The three punks then rushed the vigilantes, who in turn, ran forward to take the Syndicate goons down. Blaze's eyes narrowed as her vision focused on the lead punk, who slashed at her throat several times with the knife, all of which the Brit avoided with great skill.

"Oh just give it up, Fielding." The purple haired goon sneered, still making deadly swipes at Blaze with the knife. "The Syndicate can't be beat. Not this time."

"Oh please. As long as we're in the picture, you're never going to claim this city." Blaze retorted, stopping the woman's attempt to downwardly stab her using her wrist, then dropping into a crouch before executing a smooth sweeping kick, knocking the punk off her feet, sending her crashing to the ground face-first. She was dazed, disoriented, and pretty much done for already. She made one last futile attempt to get up, bringing herself to one knee with a heavy grunt, which Blaze responded to by grabbing her by the hair and thrusting her knee straight into her face. She fell face first back to the ground with a broken and bloodied nose. This time, she stayed there.

Meanwhile, Skate was screwing with the shaggy haired punk by purposely staying off the offense, flipping and coasting out of the way of the punk's punches and kicks. The teen did a clean flip just out of reach of the thug's mid front kick, landing perfectly, and ghosting past him, aggravating, confusing him and causing him to spin around to glare at the boy.

"Sit still you little shit!" He barked angrily, making another attempt to grab him as he flew past again.

"Meh. Guess it's time I laid you down anyway." He mocked with a shrug, doing a quick split to avoid the thug's headbutt. The attack was accompanied with a snarl.

"I'm gonna grind you into the pavement, little man. We'll run these streets soon enough." He growled, advancing toward Skate, who sidestepped his right hook, and nailed him with three lightning-fast punches in the ribs and landing an elbow to the chest with force, causing him to sink to the ground without a peep.

"Keep telling yourself that, Goldilocks." Skate grinned.

Adam kept a close watch on the long chain that the one-eyed brunette was idly swinging at her side. It suddenly snapped forward at him, causing him to sway back to avoid getting hit by it. She had said absolutely nothing, but she'd attached a psychopathic grin to her features, which spoke volumes for itself. Adam continued to watch the chain spin in vertical circles... until she sent it surprisingly craftily around his exposed arm. Upon feeling the cold steel coil tightly around his muscular left arm, Adam contracted the muscles and pulled his arm toward him with astounding force, hauling the punk towards him. Adam reared his fist back and sent a vicious right hook into her face as soon as she was close enough. Several of the woman's teeth flew from her mouth as she was sent spinning to the ground. Shortly after, the area was quiet again. The three heroes looked around slightly. They hadn't noticed it earlier, but at some point, all the citizens had left the area.

"Losers never stood a chance." Skate grinned.

"Yeah, but they sure thought they did..." Adam trailed off, highly confused. He glanced at his little brothers expression and saw that he had just taken notice to this too.

"...Let's head over to Axel's, guys." Blaze said, prompting them all to hurry over to Axel's house.

* * *

Shortly afterward, they made it to their destination without any further interruptions, something they'd been glad of. Blaze padded up the walkway and rung the doorbell, with the others right behind her. When Axel opened the door, a look came over his features. Though not an angry one by any means.

"There you guys are. We were all wondering what kept you." Axel said, stepping aside so the three could enter.

Blaze sighed and smiled, giving a shake of the head. "Yeah. Sorry we're late, everyone. Got held up by punks." Her eyes took in the two new faces present in the room, and she proceeded to greet them.

"Hello, Akira Yuki, Melanie Chan, I'm Blaze Fielding. The founder and leader of Firestorm. It's a pleasure to meet you both." She greeted, giving them firm handshakes.

"Nice to meet you too, Blaze!" Melanie replied in earnest with a smile.

"It is a pleasure to meet you as well, Miss Fielding." Akira greeted back, shaking her hand.

She gave a short giggle. "Just Blaze is fine."

"I've gotta say, it's gonna be awesome having you on the team, Akira! I see you on the World Fighting Tournaments all the time and you always go ham!" Skate said, approaching the Hakkyoku-ken master and shaking his hand.

"Thank you. And what is your name?"

"Sammy Hunter. But people call me Skate."

Akira nodded, figuring he'd acquired this nickname from the fact that he wore in-line skates. They looked like they'd been used countless times, especially the wheels. He was a _very_ avid skater. "A pleasure to meet you as well."

Skate cut his eyes at Melanie after the discussion. He'd felt her stare while he was talking to her uncle-a friendly stare, with something else mixed in that Skate couldn't pinpoint. She seemed cool and all, so Skate did the nice thing and gave a wave and smile. This caused the tomboy to do the same before diverting her gaze to the floor. The boy didn't look a day over 14-pretty young, but Melanie didn't judge, and knew that he was a skilled fighter that could hold his own out on the streets of Wood Oak City. Why would he be on the team if he couldn't? But she was curious. Curious as to how good he really was. Especially since he had rollerskates on. But she had to stop looking at him at that moment to avoid looking like some creep.

 _Wonder what that was about..._ Adam thought after noticing their complete lack of verbal communication, yet seemingly friendly demeanor towards each other. It didn't seem like they _liked_ each other...but then again maybe they did. He couldn't tell.

Melanie then briefly stared at Adam, she noticed that he bore somewhat of a resemblance to Skate, which brought her to the conclusion that they were related, plus the surname 'Hunter' seemed familiar in some way...

"Are you Adam Hunter? The boxer?" She asked.

"Yep. That's me. I've retired since then though." He smiled slightly.

I've seen you fight before! You're pretty good! Really good, actually." She said, suddenly remembering she'd seen him in a few fights on some late night boxing shows before. She didn't really watch boxing, wrestling was way better in her opinion. Though she did find herself impressed with the few matches that she did happen to see him in.

"Thanks." He smiled, before turning his attention to the girl's uncle. "Adam Hunter. Nice to meet you." He introduced, offering Akira his hand to shake and a faint smile.

"Likewise." The Bajiquan master said in a succinct, but not unkind manner, reciprocating the handshake just as he had done Skate and Blaze.

"Alright, guys. Let's head down to the room." Blaze said, ready to get things started. They usually held briefings in a conference room in a business building in secret, but since the said building was currently under partial reconstruction, they would use Axel's "Briefing Room", which was located in the small hallway on the second floor down, just below Axel's basement.

"We usually use a separate building for briefings, but it's under repair. Our usual spot is completely soundproof. Helps with confidentiality. You never know if The Syndicate will be trying to snoop in on our plans down here." Adam explained to Akira and Melanie as they all walked down the stairs. The Briefing Room was impressive looking, to say the least. At least for an average house as opposed to an actual business building. It looked just like any corporate conference room would - a large, oval-shaped table with a gloss finish, black leather chairs that rolled, a huge whiteboard that almost completely took up one of the walls, which were all painted a light grey colour to give off that business aura. The room itself was rather spacious. There was also a computer positioned next to a projector incase something needed to be visible on a bigger "screen".

" _Woah_!" Melanie gasped, impressed at the way the blonde dojo owner managed to get a part of his house to mimic an actual cooperate meeting room. "Axel, This is sick!"

"This _is_ quite the impressive room, I must say." Akira concurred.

"Thanks, you two. I try." Axel replied.

"Okay guys, let's get started." Came the authoritative British voice of Blaze. She waited until everyone had taken a seat, and then cleared her throat. "First, I'd like to give badges to our new members of the team." This prompted the other members of Firestorm to smile at the two newcomers. Blaze went over to a file cabinet and produced two shiny gold shield-shaped badges with an "F" imprint and handed them to Akira and Melanie.

"Wait, hold on! We're... _members_ now? I thought you just wanted us to help out this one time?" Melanie said in awe.

"Nope. You two are now official members of Firestorm." She said with a nod. "Is there a problem?"

" _Problem_?! This is _awesome_!" Came the girl's enthusiastic response. Blaze smiled and turned to Akira to check with him next.

"Akira?"

"As long as it will not interfere with my tournament goings, I will always be available to help." He replied sounding hard, firm and decisive as usual.

"Good to hear it." The Brit nodded with a smile.

"It is a great honour to be a part of Firestorm." He said sincerely, looking at the badge. This was another one of those positions he'd never imagined himself in. All his life he'd simply been focused on solely mastering the art of Hakkyoku-ken, and since the World Fighting Tournaments, he'd also been determined to make his grandfather proud. He had never thought of having defeat Judgement Six, or having to take down a criminal mastermind known as Mr. X. When Akira had been handed his badge, it served to be a new chapter in his life.

" _Wow_..." Melanie breathed, also looking at her badge and thus gazing back at her own beaming expression through the reflection of the material. Originally, she'd thought that she and her uncle were just temporary help. That this would only be a one-time thing, but the badge that she held in her hands proved otherwise. She would now get to know what a vigilante had go through-at least one in Wood Oak City, a city that she'd heard could be vicious at times. Up until now, Melanie hadn't had much of a status. Sure, she was a highly skilled fighter, but she wasn't a Virtua Fighter like her mother or Eileen. She always wanted to be called something. And this badge gave her just that. She was now a part of Firestorm. A vigilante. A hero.

"They're your get-in-free cards for certain places that we may come across. Like certain areas we may need to check out, or for some hotels we'll come across, to get in without paying. The city's been corrupted, so not every establishment owner... _appreciates_ our efforts. Even _they've_ become a part of the corruption. But a precious few of them are supporters of ours and will let us pass through, or get whatever we need, completely free. But they'll assume you're thugs if you don't show your badge. So keep them in a safe place. After all, they're also a way to let you know that you're one of us now." Blaze smiled at Akira and Melanie, who then pocketed their badges. "And don't worry about having to relocate. For future missions, we'll just contact you when we need you. And if you guys happen to be busy at the moment, that's completely fine, but we'd prefer to have all members." She added, causing them to nod.

"Now," Blaze started, her expression going rather serious. "As we all know, the city has been corrupted again. But this time it's not just Mr. X anymore. He's formed an alliance with a criminal organization known as Judgement Six, or J6, for short." She then turned to the two new members once again. "Are you two familiar with them?"

"Yes." I've never had any personal experiences, but I've heard stories." Akira replied.

"Same." Came Melanie's laconic remark.

Another nod from Blaze. She then addressed the team again. "I've done some research, and from what I've gathered, they're an organization that usually uses World Fighting Tournaments as a way to gather the world's strongest fighters - the Virtua Fighters, all into one place so they can kill them after retrieving their invaluable combat data to power their ultimate weapon: Dural. A combat machine that will achieve them world domination."

Adam, Skate, and Max all put on determined frowns. They were all thinking the same thing. World domination? Certainly a step up from what they were used to. Sure, they'd saved Wood Oak City a number of times from Mr. X's corruption, but this alliance with Judgement Six changed everything. This was no longer just about saving one city. No. If they didn't win this one, the entire _world_ would be at the mercy of Mr. X and J6. The stakes had been raised.

"They're calling themselves..." Blaze paused briefly, still in disbelief that this was even happening, yet not even daring to back down. " _Judgement X_." This sent a wave of a similar feeling over the rest of Firestorm. "We won't be the first ones going after them, as it turns out. My research tells me that someone named Jacky Bryant, after getting wind of this new organization, took it upon himself to stop them...in which...he failed. It resulted in his untimely death. He was overwhelmed by a gang of mid-high level thugs, trained expertly by Judgement X."

Akira's face showed no emotion at Blaze's somber words. But just behind his eyes, lay burning anger and hatred towards the new organization. He'd attended Jacky's funeral after his body had been brought back to California by a concerned friend, and at first didn't want to accept that he was gone. They had been racing with one another of all things, trained together on several occasions, and had overall grown close. The memory of Jacky's death had still been a painful one. After all, it was still relatively recent. But Akira wouldn't let the pain distract him from his mission and cause him to undergo a similar fate. No. He would avenge his friend. Use the anger and pain to fuel his resolve in bringing down Judgement X. He briefly glanced over to his niece, who'd been sitting next to him, and saw that her features had fixed themselves to into a tight frown upon hearing the news concerning her Uncle's untimely death.

"My research also tells me that his sister, Sarah Bryant, was kidnapped and brainwashed using state-of-the-art technology - the kind that leaves victims in a permanent mindwiped state. Apparently, she had been subjected to this before, but with less powerful brainwashing methods. Her brother was able to free her for a time, but recently, she had visited here for Spring Break, and by that time, X and J6 were partners, and with their combined power, managed to recapture her, and brainwash her again. This time for good. Around this time was when Jacky set out to rescue his sister and stop JX, and when the organization was hidden, using J6's methods and being subtile."

Melanie's frown had only remained upon hearing that news. Sarah had been a good friend of her mother's, thus becoming Melanie's aunt. When Pai had told her that Sarah was once again under J6's control, and thus an assassin once more, it brought some slight conflicted emotions upon the young tomboy. Her aunt was evil - again. Albeit against her will, but still...the fact that she carried out the orders of these guys had tugged on her mind at the time. She hadn't known Sarah at all - having only heard about her from her mother. Being still in college in San Fran made it difficult for visiting or even meeting across Skype or over the phone. Not being that close to her now brainwashed aunt would make the fight less painful for Melanie, but the emotional part wasn't much of an issue anymore for her. When she volunteered to accompany her uncle to WOC, she was fully aware that she may essentially have to fight family. And she was ready for that encounter with her aunt, should said encounter become a reality. Melanie was not only physically capable as a fighter, but mentally capable as well. She was a strong girl. Not just physically, but mentally as well. Learning that J6 was the cause of Jacky's death wasn't helping her mood either to say the least, but like Akira, she planned to use those feelings to her advantage during the inevitable confrontation. But for now, she pushed said feelings to the back of her head (calming back down in the process), and returned her attention to the briefing.

"I didn't need any research for this..." She started, but it was undoubtedly how X managed to get Zan." She said, furrowing slightly, and slowly exhaling before continuing. "Around the same time as Sarah's kidnapping and Jacky's death, Zan disappeared mysteriously. We planned to look for him, but a short time later there was a successful assassination attempt on the head of the Lima Nations. A Rakushin bomb had detonated in City Hall, but not nearly as strong as the one that caused the first bomb tragedy of Wood Oak City. This one was specifically customized to take out the head of the Lima Nations by releasing it as a fatal type of gas. I knew for a fact that Zan is the only one smart enough to do that. That's when I knew what became of him. What they were even trying to accomplish in doing this is beyond me, but I've got a hunch that we'll be finding out soon enough." Blaze finished, directing that part toward Akira and Melanie, given that the others already knew of the incident.

"After Zan's capturing, they started becoming more showy by corrupting the city." Blaze clarified, now talking to everyone, keeping in mind to tell everything she knew about the situation in detail. Truth be told, she was feeling a bit dejected herself all of a sudden that this is what it was coming to. She'd grown to consider the elderly cyborg a true friend as time went on. Skate had some difficulty trusting him at first, what with him being an ex-Syndicate scientist, and Axel seemed to have gotten bad vibes from him for the same reason, but Blaze seemed to sense that he was genuine from the very start, and held faith in his loyalty to them. Not to mention the fact that he was part robot was a great asset to them when they were in a desperate search for the nuclear Rakushin bombs scattered among the city. If not for Zan, the city might've still been a nuclear warzone. It would be unsettling and ironic to protect the city from the someone who had once saved it from oblivion. But it had to be done, and she was prepared to do anything for the sake of the city, even if it meant taking Zan down.

Blaze's brown eyes swept over the faces of Axel, Adam, Skate, and Max. They were thinking the same thing. She could tell.

"It's not going to be easy guys." Blaze started, her tone emphasizing how important it was that they work as a team during this task. "The punks won't make this a tea party for us. This alliance between X and J6 seems to have really boosted their egos. Before Adam, Skate, and I fought those _3 ordinary_ thugs earlier, they went on about how they were going to take us out like we were nothing. Like they actually stood a chance."

Axel spoke up at that moment. "Earlier when those Signals busted in, Akira took down one of them with a single move. They were all looking right at him when it happened, yet the rest still came at us afterward. Syndicate goons have always thought they were the shit, but still...they seemed even more overconfident than usual, just like you said. Akira and I saw it in their eyes."

Blaze nodded before raising an eyebrow quizzically. "Just you and Akira? Wasn't Melanie with you?"

Melanie chuckled as a slightly rueful smirk came over her face. "Yeah...about that...I kinda missed out. I was upstairs going through my stuff with my music turned all the way up. By the time the song ended and I came downstairs, my uncle and Axel had already beaten everybody."

"You'll have to excuse Axel, Melanie" Max joked. "He's always been an action hog." This elicited a few chuckles out of Melanie.

"Oh, shut up, man." Axel laughed a little.

" _Hey_!" Skate grinned, joining in. " _I'm_ the jokester of the team, Max!"

Blaze chuckled and shook her head, absolutely amused at how the atmosphere of the room could go from serious and businesslike to humorous the next.

"So was that it? The entire briefing? Are we hitting the streets now?" The tomboy asked as her eyes shined with hope that the answer was yes. Not because she found the briefing boring or anything, she found this particular part rather exciting. It reminded her of movies and TV shows she'd seen that featured FBI agents getting information on their latest adversary to bring to justice. Although being a vigilante seemed to have a certain badass factor that being some cop or a Fed just lacked. She couldn't quite place her finger on it, but it was ever prominent in this air. It was safe to say that Melanie Chan was officially pumped up.

"Right after I give these out." Blaze replied with a smile, sensing the girl's excitement. She went into a nearby file cabinet and pulled out several small earpieces - seven to be exact, and distributed them to the members of the team.

"These are used for keeping in contact with eachother should we split up for any reason." Blaze informed, talking to Melanie and Akira while putting in her own earpiece. They figured this was the case, but they sensed she had more to say about them, so they listened. "They're waterproof, fire retardant, virtually indestructible. The bottom button is used to contact one of us, so if you hold down the button and talk, we'll all hear you. The top button is to contact Murphy, our backup. If things get too out of control, give the the words, and he'll show up in a helicopter and shoot all the thugs in the area straight to hell and clear a path for us."

"Understood." Akira nodded, securely lodging his earpiece in.

" _Niiice_." Melanie replied, grinning while doing the same.

Adam spoke up. "I'll let Murphy know we're just about ready to get this show on the road." The ex-boxer held down the top button on his earpiece, causing a tiny bit of static to ripple through the receiver. When it cleared, he spoke.

"Murphy, you there? We're ready to go."

Just then, he heard Murphy's youthful voice come through the speaker of his earpiece.

" _Got it, I'll get into position for support_."

"We've got two new members on the team, man. So if you hear new voices, no need to be alarmed." Adam informed.

" _Thanks for the heads up. Over and out_."

"Murphy's getting ready too, Blaze." Adam told his scarlet-clad leader, who then responded with a nod.

"Good."

 _Got a feeling we're definitely gonna need him sooner or later..._

"Alright, guys. Let's see to it that these bastards don't run the world." She decreed with a ready smirk.

" _Oh_ yeah!" Melanie exclaimed, cracking her knuckles, both ready to start putting some goons to sleep as well as to help protect the world.

"They shall receive no mercy!" Akira yelled, holding up a fist, pure fighting spirit burning within his voice.

"The streets above us are crawling with JX punks, let's roll!" Skate grinned.

"Read my mind, bro!" Adam responded, tightly securing his shoulder pads, making sure they were on tightly for the many situations he would need to use them in. And with that, Blaze walked through the door, followed by the others. They quickly checked the hallway for spies that might have been hiding somewhere, listening in. You could never be too careful when it came to Mr. X's goons. He had tons upon tons on his payroll after all, all with varying abilities. After finding none, Firestorm exited the house, and took to the dangerous streets of Wood Oak City.

By this point, the sky had turned a deep, dark, blue. It's only inhabitants were a shining white moon. No stars. The warm, comfortable, air of a summer night surrounded the vigilantes as they moved at a moderate pace, knowing that there was no turning back now. But it didn't really matter. They were all brave fighters who would fight till the end.

"So where are we headed first?" Melanie asked eagerly to no one specific member of the team.

"The downtown area. No doubt there's some high-ranking thugs that can tell us a thing or two. And knowing these guys, we're gonna have to beat it out of them-if that's fine with you." Blaze added playfully with a smile.

"Hey, no argument here, I love to fight!" The blonde girl responded, zipping up her hoodie, even though it was summertime. Adam noticed this and raised an eyebrow.

"You won't be hot in that? We _will_ be out on the streets during the day, and it _is_ summer.

She smiled and shook her head. "Nope. Not really. I guess I just love to wear hoodies. No matter what time of year it is." She chuckled.

"Can't blame you there. I wear jackets in the summer too. Mine's at home though. But I'll probably end up wearing it sometime soon." Blaze laughed.

Rounding a corner and quickly nearing their destination, the seven vigilantes all heard Murphy's voice come over the speakers in their earpieces.

" _I'm in the downtown area. Got visuals on all of you guys_."

"We'll let you know if things get too crazy, Murphy." Axel replied.

" _Sounds good, Axel. Over and out._ "

They neared another corner, one more turn, and they would be downtown. "Alright, guys," Blaze started, going serious now, and straining her ears, picking up the faded sounds of voices. "I can hear some thugs around that corner. Be ready." She warned the others.

"I'm always ready." Max said with a smirk, narrowing his eyebrows as he punched his fist into his gigantic palm.

Melanie couldn't keep a smile off of her face as she heard that. She couldn't wait to see _the_ Max Thunder crush some skulls in person. It would be better than seeing any of his wrestling matches! Which said alot!

They rounded the corner, all walking side by side. With Blaze in the center, Axel to her right, with Adam next to him, Skate taking the far right. On Blaze's left was Melanie, who was walking beside Akira. On the far left walked Max. Badasses. If it were all a movie scene, it would have definitely been played in slow motion.

A wave of about 12 Judgement X punks had been expecting them. Some were wielding pipes and bats, others empty-handed. The criminals snuck shady looks at the vigilantes as they came into their view. Among them, the team could recognize some of the thugs from The Syndicate-namely, Galsia, a redheaded Hispanic punk with a denim outfit on, Cody, a rather speedy blonde punk dressed similarly to Axel, Donovan, a black, topless thug with a shaved head and dark sunglasses, and a Yellow Signal. They had all become low-level thugs for Judgement X. A few of the thugs flicked out their cigarettes as they drew closer.

"This is it for you, Firestorm! Say your prayers-"

"Oh shut the fuck up, Donovan! You guys aren't shit!" Adam interrupted in his usual laid-back persona, wanting to get these guys on the ground.

"Heh. You talk tough, Hunter, but there's like, what, 13 of us, and only seven of you. Do the math." Sneered another punk.

"Strength in numbers does not apply in this case!" Akira shouted, flaring his nostrils, wanting to rush in and start fighting at that moment. However, he didn't, because Blaze was the leader of the team, not him. And he didn't want to do anything until she gave the green light to do so.

"Why don't we show her just what Akira means?" Blaze suggested to the team with a devilish grin.

"Hell yeah! I've been waiting for this!" Melanie exclaimed, bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet, loosening up. "LET'S ROCK!"

The thugs started out slowly advancing foward before breaking out into a run, prompting Firestorm to sprint fourth. And just like that, the fight - the third of many, was on.

Axel charged towards an empty handed thug. The thug had a ripped T-shirt and equally ripped black jeans on.

"You better back the fuck off while you can, Stone." The hoodlum boasted, throwing a right hook at the blonde dojo owner. "You've got a whole new syndicate to deal with now."

Axel quickly felt his rage boil up inside of him as he evaded the blow. "Doesn't matter! We'll take JX down just like we did The Syndicate!" Axel brought his fist upward in a Grand Upper, the sheer force of the move causing him to slide forward slightly, while still maintaining his form.

" _GRAND UPPAH!_ " He yelled, his flaming fist catching the goon square in the chest, sending him flying.

Meanwhile, Skate was already busy dodging blows from a female punk with long blonde hair peeking out from a black baseball hat that she wore backwards, ironically resembling the way he wore his. The rest of her attire was also black. Skate readied himself for a Dynamite Headbutt, but the punk was prepared for it. She threw her hands up in a guarding position just as Skate launched himself like a middle in her direction. She stumbled back as Skate crashed himself headfirst into her guarding arms. She took a good amount of damage from it, but she managed to keep enough balance to avoid falling over.

"They told me you'd try some shit like that. Now it's my turn." She said rearing her fist back for a punch, which Skate had planned to dodge and counter with one of his own attacks. But before he could, the black-clad hoodlum was knocked to the ground by another punk that had flown into her. It was a tanned male with a black leather jacket on, giving him a shady look. Skate turned his head in the direction he'd come from to see Melanie in her fighting stance, facing in the direction of the punks, waiting for the on she'd been dealing with to get up. Her fighting stance was similar to her mother's, only with her hands curled into fists and her arms brought somewhat closer to her chest.

"Come on, don't tell me you're done already!" Melanie shouted at the leather jacket-clad thug, grinning. He shook his head to orientate himself, and rose to his feet. Now having recovered from Melanie's fierce combo, composed of two punches to the chest and a crushing kick to the ribs, he charged at her with murder in his eyes. He made an angry grab for her, which she effortlessly slipped around before taking a tiny step backwards and thrusting her elbow into his ribcage before launching a roundhouse kick into the side of his face. The tomboy was an excellent fighter-and learner, having mastered a very large number of techniques from her mother within a week, and the fact that fighting was a second natured activity for her, she always got to utilize these techniques, thus causing her to be always be familiar with them. She had yet to participate in a World Fighting Tournament against the worlds best, but she did tend to compete in local fighting tournaments regularly. In which she was undefeated.

The punk lay on the ground before trying to claw his way back to his feet with a broken rib, and a nasty bruise on the side of his face where Melanie struck him.

"RRRGGGH! I'll take you down, you little bitch!" He roared, storming over to her in a stagger. Without blinking, she nailed him with a Hi'en Reyyakku, the scissor like kick cracking his skull as he dove forward, and shutting him up for good.

Skate had happened to sneak a quick glance Melanie's way at that moment, and was rather surprised at what he saw.

 _The Hi'en Reyyakku... damn_... Skate thought in disbelief. He'd seen Pai pull off that move countless times in the World Fighting Tournaments. Only she knew the move-or so he thought. She truly was Pai's daughter. He never doubted that she wasn't or anything, just...it was so surreal to see someone other than Pai doing her signature move.

Melanie turned to seek out another thug to deal with, but before she did, she partly spun around and treated Skate to a knowing and somewhat sly look. It was as if she could read his thoughts or something, that she knew he was thinking about her. Skate looked back at her, his mouth still slightly agape, before they both simultaneously returned their attention to fighting the punks. Skate briefly contemplated the silent exchange between him and Melanie, before fully returning his attention to the fight. In actuality, they'd only glanced at each other, but it felt like time was moving in slow motion.

Max was currently met with Galsia, Donovan, and a male, blonde, thug who had short hair, dark shorts and a matching muscle shirt on.

"You guys never get it, do you?" Max inquired with a dangerous smile to the three thugs that were going to attempt to attack him.

"If you're smart, Max, you'll give this whole vigilante thing a rest. Cause Abadede's been looking forward to getting even. And I'm telling you, it won't be pretty, not for you." Galsia sneered, pulling a black army knife from one of the pockets of his denim vest and attempting to stab Max, who effortlessly knocked the blade from Galsia's hand, and moved in to lift the thug using only one arm. At this point Donovan and the other thug had rushed Max, who was able to put down Donovan with a quick punch to the chest. Galsia was lightweight, so Max used him as a weapon, swinging him by the back of his denim vest, straight into the last thug. The sheer impact killed them both. Max could hear Melanie's cries of laughter at his method of attack not far away. Max smirked and looked into Galsia's lifeless eyes while holding him in front of him.

"Tell him I'll be ready for him." Came the wrestler's one liner to the dead punk.

A thought occurred to Melanie as she ran off to assist her uncle and Adam, who were dealing with some punks.

"Wait a sec! Abadede's with The Syndicate?!...Shit, Judgement X, I mean."

"Yeah. He was with The Syndicate when they first showed up. Joining X forced him to leave behind his career. When he's not getting in our way, he's out doing illegal underground fights."

"The bastard! I knew there was something slimy about him..." Melanie trailed off with a gritty frown. Abadede had been the girl's least favorite wrestler of all time. He cheated, was notorious for savagely attacking the ref, and was a total douchebag whenever he won. Needless to say, Melanie was glad when another wrestler could put him in check, which is why the night of Abadede's defeat at the hands of Max had been a particularly memorable one for Melanie.

Adam and Akira had their hands full with 4 punks: the Yellow Signal, a muscled punk with a black denim jacket on, a woman with partially died green hair, a pale man with freckles and armed with a steel pipe, and a man that had his hair in a mohawk, much like the Signals, albeit much shorter. He was carrying a wooden baseball bat.

"So you're supposed to be some sorta Karate guy, huh? Well Karate this!" The punk sneered, eying Akira for his choice of wardrobe. He raised his bat and brought it down in a swing, intent on hitting him with it. However, he wrapped his hand around the blunt weapon. With a yell, he pulled the bat, and the punk towards him before thrusting his right palm right into the thug's stomach with crushing force.

"I am a practitioner of Bajiquan, not Karate!" He roared hotly at the goon, who helplessly slumped to the street with a silent moan, defeated, his weapon clattering to the ground.

"Damn! Heh, that was a nice one! Alright then, let's see what I can do here..." Adam smirkingly mused the last part to himself, staying light on his feet. Surprisingly, the black denim jacket clad punk whom he was facing at the moment had no biting remarks for him, instead opting to stay quiet and attack with a kick and a few punches, all of which Adam managed to easily bob and weave around. He returned fire with his own two swift punches to the face and stomach, followed by one more kick to the head. The punk was sent crashing to the ground as a result.

" _You know what_?" The leering punk finally spoke from the ground, swiping the baseball bat from where it lay beside his fallen comrade as he heaved himself up. He would not get a chance to finish his sentence, or do his attack with the bat, because as the wooden weapon was raised high in the air-and planned to be brought back down that second, there had been a short and somewhat sharp "SNAP!" as the punk had taken notice how the bat had seemed noticeably lighter. He glanced in its direction and saw remnants of quickly dissipating embers of cyan energy. Chi.

He and the two remaining punks looked to the right to see Melanie deftly skidding to a stop near Adam and her uncle.

"Actually, I'll take care of this little bitch first." The same thug sneered, intending to use the jagged edges of the bat to effect.

At that moment, Melanie could have easily just killed him with another ball of chi, but she opted not to-this time. She had nothing against using chi in fights, but this time, she just felt the need to beat this dude's face in with punches and kicks.

"This guy's nothing. I got 'im." She called to her two teammates with a confident smirk that seemed to set the punk's blood to boil. They nodded and turned to take on the other two thugs while she went to put down the one that Adam had been beating up before she arrived.

"Oh I'll show you who's nothing, you little shit." The punk growled, stabbing and slashing viciously at the teenage Mizongquan fighter with the jagged bat. This prompted her go on the evasive for a little bit-dodging and ducking around said attacks. Maybe draw this out a just little. With every fast dodge out of the way of his attack, Melanie's smile grew bigger. Words couldn't describe how thrilling this experience was for her. She was fighting evil for God's sake! The only thing that would complete this feeling was throwing out some attacks. And what a coincidence, the thug was already starting to slow with exhaustion after a few attempts. And her fists were aching to pound some flesh.

So naturally, the tomboy followed her instincts and did just that.

"My turn." She sneered readily before suddenly switching to offense, throwing out a midair roundhouse kick, catching him in the face and shattering his jaw. As blood leaked from his mouth like water from a faucet, Melanie threw 3 straight punches aimed straight at his chest, each one drew pained grunts from him. She finished the combo with a very high side kick, sending him flying a short distance, putting him out. He, did an impression of a ragdoll upon landing.

"Guess she _did_ show you who was nothing-it was _you_ after all." Adam taunted the fallen body as he and Akira walked over to it, having finished dealing with the Signal and the female punk with no difficulty. He then addressed a smiling Melanie. "You okay?"

Melanie replied with an enthusiastic nod, still high on the adrenaline rush. "Uh huh! Haven't got a scratch on me! Did we get everybody in this area?"

"Not yet, but Blaze is dealing with Cody over there." Adam said, gesturing past Melanie at the two. "Shouldn't take too long. Once he's done with, we can move on." This caused the Bajiquan practitioner to nod. His fair-skinned niece did the same.

Cody doubled over and winced in pain as Blaze nailed him in the stomach with a well-placed kick. She had been previously throwing quick punches at the thug named Cody, an effective way of dealing with him in particular. He was one of the speedier punks.

"Oh come on, Blaze! This would be a lot easier if you'd just stop this little crime-fighting thing already!" The young, thug huffed, growing annoyed with having to fight her. He lunged at her, arms outstretched, and trying to grab her face. Blaze noticed he was in the perfect bodily position to get hit by an Embyaku. With this in mind, the leader of Firestorm bent her shapely form in a backwards arch before bringing her leg up to strike him in the chin, and then did the same with her other leg, then finishing the standing somersault-esque move. As for Cody, the thug had been sent flying from the attack (and killed), leaving Blaze to smirk upon seeing his limp body land hard on the concrete. With a hand on her hip, she then surveyed the area, making sure to carefully look upward incase one of the punks was hidden and planning an ambush. But all her vision captured were the faces of her teammates, and corpses that littered the area.

"That does it for these fuckers. But I think I hear some more around that corner. Let's go!" Blaze said, bolting down the neon-lit street, prompting the others to follow suit.

Adam cast a quick glance back at Melanie, who'd been running slightly behind him, but at the same time keeping up with the group. From what he saw, she had an ear-to-ear smile etched onto her features.

"Enjoying yourself so far, Melanie?" The boxer asked rhetorically with a chuckle.

"Yeah! This is sweet!" She replied while pumping her legs in a run, approaching the corner along with the other vigilantes.

Upon rounding the corner, Axel, Adam, Blaze, Max, and Skate's facial expressions all contorted into that of a look of easy determination, having been met with a faintly familiar face slowly striding toward them. A fairly large man in a blue parka with matching pants, the fuzzy hood pulled back as he idly ran his eyes, concealed by opaque black glasses, over the reflective boomerang that he held in one hand.

"This is as far as you go, Firestorm..." The man trailed off intentionally, glaring at them.

"Still at this, huh, Antonio?" Scoffed Axel as he cracked his knuckles loudly, not really surprised that the high-ranking Syndicate thug-turned-high ranking JX thug stood before them.

"Yeah, he is. And he didn't come alone either!" Roared another voice from the shadows near where Antonio was. His voice was like gravel. The figure of whom it belonged to stepped from the shadows, revealing himself to be a man of average size. He wore a crimson vest, wore faded and ripped jeans. His dark, shaggy, dirty hair came down to the back of his neck, and there was a white hockey mask securely placed upon his face, hiding everything, save for his narrowed eyes. He was known as Slash, another mid-ranking thug from The Syndicate-turned-high ranking thug from JX.

"No way! A serial killer?!" Melanie grinned, not the least bit afraid.

"Yeah. And a dangerous one too." Adam supplied, before glancing back at Firestorm's two newcomers. "Don't take him lightly."

"I won't, but this motherfucker better not take _us_ lightly either!" Replied Melanie.

In response to being cussed, Slash growled like the madman he was. "Is that right, little girl? We'll then I think I'll slash your throat out first!"

Slash plucked a silver knife from one of the many pockets of his vest, causing the fight to begin. Instantly, he lunged for Melanie, stabbing at her with a clear killing intent. Melanie retaliated by quickly dodge-rolling out of the way of his stabs and summoning her chi upon returning to her feet.

 _This guy is nuts_. She thought, smirking to herself. _Adam wasn't kidding when he said this dude was dangerous._

 _Guess that just means I'll have to put him down for good!_

The ball of chi between her palms grew at a quick rate as she focused on Slash, preparing to launch the projectile at him. She then thrust her palms outward, sending the cyan energy into Slash's chest, which in turn sent his body flying into the brick wall he'd been standing behind.

Nonetheless, he was alive, still, as proved evident by him pulling himself to his feet and scooping the dropped knife off the ground as Adam and Skate rushed in to get their licks in.

"Hey, hockey face, look alive!" Skate yelled, leaping into the air and throwing out a jumping kick, only for the masked thug to block the attack using his knife. He pushed forward, and hard, forcing Skate back to the ground. Fortunately, the skater teen was no stranger to landing with fluidity, and managed to easily do so on the hard, moderately unforgiving pavement. Adam decided to use this opportunity to go in. With a mighty grunt, he sent a right hook straight at the killer's face, which connected. His mask, being made of an indestructible material of some sort, absorbed the worst of the blow, only sending him stumbling back a pace. Slash lurched forward and threw a punch at Adam's jaw, which Adam unfortunately wasn't fast enough to respond to. The police officer reeled back in agony from the crushing attack. Slash was not one of the weaker ones, that was for sure.

"Die, Hunter!" Slash roared, using his currently knife-occupied hand to thrust the blade at his target, only to have Skate crash into his side in a Dynamite Headbutt. Slash staggered back, and dropped the knife, a detail which Skate didn't fail to miss.

"I'll take _that_." Skate sneered, scooping up the killer's weapon and bolting off toward him. Melanie, still in her stance, watched him do it, knowing he had more in mind than just a simple stab. When Skate was close enough, he outstretched his arms and legs while holding the knife by the handle with both hands. He seemed to glide slightly across the air when he moved, cleanly slicing Slash across the chest. The thug roared in great pain and fell back. As for the knife, it's blade had snapped cleanly off the handle due to being used with such force."

Meanwhile, Antonio had Axel, Blaze, Akira, and Max to deal with. He skillfully tossed his boomerang at them, hoping it would strike the five vigilantes, but they all managed to skillfully maneuver around the weapon as it came soaring at them. As it neatly returned to his palm, Axel seized his opportunity to go in. The blonde dojo instructor threw a straight punch at the thug, who dodged it, and retaliated by swinging his leg forward, prompting Axel dodge-rolled to evade it.

"I've got him!" Blaze shouted, quickly moving to one of Antonio's blind spots as her hands glowed with a light blue energy. She was ready to attack.

" _Kikoshou_!" The Brit shouted, thrusting both her palms fourth, sending a burst of psychic energy crashing into Antonio, knocking him off his feet and sending him flying a short distance. He got up, adjusted his glasses and looked up to see the four running up to him for a follow-up attack.

"You will all die!" He bellowed, taking a swing at Akira, who anticipated the blow and outstretched his arm to parry the attack. He would have done so, as he had managed to get a grip on the thug's huge arm, but Akira wasn't expecting him to deliver a hard-hitting kick to the side of his ribs, and was forced to let go of the thug as a result.

"And now, amico, you will know pain." He said in a smooth and deadly tone, aiming another punch at Akira, but the Bajiquan practitioner growled through the pain and struck fourth with an elbow to the chest before Antonio got his chance. The attack sent him stumbling back, presenting Max with a window of opportunity.

"Heh. Get ready!" Max shouted at the thug before running over and leaping at their opponent with arms outstretched, slamming into the Italian thug's torso with the ferocity of a raging bull, and ensnaring him in a tackle. It was quite possibly one of Max's most effective moves, and it definitely hit hard. While Max was getting up from his move, Antonio decided to do something dirty. With a growl, he rammed the end of the boomerang into Max's stomach-hard, causing the wrestler to stumble back slightly.

 _Bastard_. The hulking vigilante thought bitterly to himself. His thoughts were cut off by a quick kick to the ribs, causing him to grunt and reel back in pain. Akira stopped Antonio from doing more with a perfectly placed palm strike to the side of the torso, resulting in Antonio rolling a short distance and letting out growling cusses upon making his way back to his feet. He was definitely showing signs of wearing down-he was clearly struggling to stand, and his cheek was bruised slightly purple. Antonio tightly gripped his weapon as he faced the four with a deadly stare behind his dark, perfectly round glasses.

"Hey, Akira! Thanks, man!" Max shouted to the martial artist, who nodded firmly in response, before turning his attention back to the fight.

"He's almost down, guys!" Blaze shouted, noting the thug's condition. "Let's wrap this up."

From where he stood, Antonio slung his boomerang at the heroes once more as they ran toward him, the angular weapon traveling in a wide arc at a deadly quick pace. Axel, Blaze, Max, and Akira had to all dive under to avoid getting hit by the spinning object. Amazingly, even in his current battered state, Antonio was able to nimbly grab his weapon as it returned to him. But due to being in said state, could not react fast enough to Axel running up to him at full speed with teeth bared and rage in his sharp blue eyes.

"KYAAAAAH!" Axel screamed, leaping into the air and throwing out a powerful dropkick in midair. The attack met Antonio's face with crushing force, breaking his glasses-shattered lenses and all. As they fell from his face entirely and shattered upon hitting the concrete, he reeled back with a dazed groan. One final attack would put him down.

Blaze was more than willing to deliver that attack. As Axel quickly moved aside to allow her room to finish this, the Judoka ran up to the thug, positioned herself correctly, grabbed him, then kicked his foot out from under him using her own foot and then using all of her strength to toss him over her back and onto the ground. Antonio was dead. He had been too weak to put up any sort of resistance, and as a result, Blaze was able to Judo throw him with ease. Which was good, because Antonio was a big man.

 _So she does practice Judo_... Akira thought to himself as he slowly exited his stance, having witnessed the attack. During the time where Akira had first met Axel in the past, he'd told him that Blaze was a Judoka. Having seen some of her previous moves-namely her striking ones, Akira was confused. From what he'd been told, she practiced Judo, which prohibited the use of free strikes such as punches and kicks. But from the throw he'd just seen her pull off, he was convinced. It turned out that she just made her own. He'd definitely seen that before in a certain rival of his...

"He's dead." Blaze notified the other three with a satisfied smirk, noticing Antonio's unmoving form lying on the concrete.

"And from the looks of it, Adam, Skate and Melanie are just about done too." Axel said looking over, referring to the fact that a roughed up Slash was on the verge of defeat by the three vigilantes.

"HOYAH!" Adam exclaimed, sending a speeding punch straight for Slash's jaw area, which connected with a loud crack. The serial killer went down instantly, and did not attempt to get up. However, he was still alive, proven evident by the slight movement of his head and rugged moans.

Adam, his brother, and Melanie stood over him. The latter two looked on as Adam snatched up Slash, who was barely alive, by his vest. As the other four joined them, Adam began interrogating the thug.

"Alright, you son of a bitch, you know who we're after, so where do we go from here?" The cop venomously spat, narrowing his eyes and pulling Slash close.

Slash was silent for a moment, opting to glare scornfully at Adam behind his mask. Finally, he spoke.

"Look, Souther's got an idea of where you should head next. That's all I know." He said irritably, in no condition to fight back.

Blaze placed her hands on her slender hips pensively. "So Souther's the second one we go to again, huh?" She thought out loud, for a moment wondering if it would take them around the same route as she, Axel and Adam traveled during their very first outing through the city as vigilantes, but then shook the thought off, strongly doubting it.

"Not that it matters, you'll all be dead as soon as you set foot on his territory. Tons of thugs are just waiting for you to show up just like we were."

Completely ignoring Slash's comment, Adam tightened his grip on Slash's vest that he held him by. "And that's _all_ you know?"

" _Yes_. Now get out of my face."

"Gladly." Adam said, his scowl turning into a smirk, yet his eyebrows still remained narrowed. "And don't worry about us. We'll be just fine." He added, choosing to respond to Slash's second comment. He then drew his tightened fist back and sent it flying into the front of Slash's mask, knocking it off and finally killing him.

"Good job, Adam." Firestorm's leader praised with a smile.

"Thanks. Guess interrogation just comes with being a cop."

"So who's Souther and where's his territory at?" Melanie asked curiously, unzipping her hoodie and stuffing her hands into her pockets.

"He's another high-ranking thug we need to go after, and simply put-he's to be taken dead seriously. If you thought Slash was intense, you won't think so after you fight Souther. He lives in the slums of Wood Oak City, an especially thug-ridden area." Axel supplied. The corner of his lip curled upward slightly upon seeing the girl's eyes light up at this.

"I _already_ wanna take this guy on!" Melanie exclaimed readily, curling a hand into a fist. "My first fight here was epic, and I'm all for having more!"

"I am ready as well!" Akira shouted, doing one of his distinctive, trademark stomps, his fighting spirit alive as ever.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Max smirked, crossing his huge arms.

"I'm with Max on this one, guys, let's roll!" Skate exclaimed.

With the knowledge of their next destination, Firestorm made their way down the now empty downtown streets, with Blaze taking point. Their next target was Souther. And he lived in the slums. A deadly place on it's own, but only intensified tenfold by the influence of Judgement X.

* * *

 ** _A/N: FINALLY! Lol So sorry about the long wait, guys! I really wish I could make these updates quicker, haha. But anyway, hope it was worth the wait!_**

 ** _I wanted to say that I will be bringing in SoR enemies and bosses just like Antonio and Slash from SoR1 and SoR Remake respectively. Fans of Streets of Rage will likely appreciate this!_**

 ** _With that said, I'll see you next chapter!_**

 ** _-Stefan422_**


	4. Chapter 03: Melanie Chan

Chapter 03: Melanie Chan

 **Melanie Chan**

Firestorm continued down the neonlit downtown streets in a comfortable silence. The area was noiseless, having been absent of punks, for now of course. They had left the corpses of the previous punks from the fight where they fell, turned several corners, and were now about a little more than 2/5 of the way to the slums. With her team in tow, the red-clad Brit walked confidently ahead with a stride that emphasized her utmost desire to protect the world from the new menace that was Judgement X.

Further back in the group was Skate. He had been making sure to roll delicately so that he would not hit into his teammates in their stroll. While not in possession of the leader-like skills that came so naturally to Blaze, and definitely while not the strongest member of the team, he was still a highly valuable asset to the team. Hell, he was instrumental in the second of the team's escapades into these dangerous streets, and he was years younger at the time. And even when he had turned 15, his resolve hadn't faltered. He would continue helping the out the team-more specifically-being an active member of Firestorm for years, and years to come.

The rollerblading teen was somewhat surprised, but not startled, at the sensation of being nudged lightly in the arm. He had noticed at that moment that he'd been walking right next to Melanie.

"Hey." Came her smooth voice, breaking the silence that had befallen them. She was smirking. "Those were some pretty cool moves back there, especially that thing that you did with the knife."

"Heh, thanks." The teen said with a smile, for some reason uncharacteristically unable to meet her gaze for a split second. "It was nothing really...I just use the momentum to help keep me in the air...and stuff." Melanie nodded, smiling, her green eyes shining bright with fascination. The other members who'd happened to overhear Skate's somewhat embarrassed tone, and smiled to themselves-except for Akira, but this was due to the fact that he was often stoic-faced, and didn't smile much.

"But you were the one that was really awesome out there." Skate complimented, having taken on a slightly more especial tone for him.

"You really were." Blaze agreed, looking back at Melanie, yet keeping her stride. "A bloody good fighter." She saw Axel nod in agreement out of the corner of her eye.

"You got a serious punch on you, Melanie. And you've got a fighting style that you can really call your own. We need more people like you in the ring." Max praised with a chuckle.

"Heh heh, thanks, Max!" Melanie laughed. "But you were killer back there too! I mean, you used the dude as a nunchaku! Awesome!" She said, full of mirth, causing the wrestler to let out another hearty chuckle.

"Your mum must've had no problem letting you come down here and fight, huh?" Blaze asked the young heroine, half jokingly.

In response, Melanie gave a short laugh, and rubbed the back of her neck, looking slightly at the ground. "Well, not exactly."

"Really?" Axel said, genuinely surprised that her mother would be hesitant to let her come, considering the girl's obvious great skill.

"Yes, that is the truth." Akira nodded at Axel, having been there to witness the exchange between her and Pai. "Why don't you tell them, Melanie?"

Melanie smiled, having no problems with the idea. "Sure! Better yet, I'll tell you that, _and_ what happened earlier on the same day. This way you'll know a little about what my life is like. Y'know, learn a bit about me I guess."

Blaze, Axel, Skate, Max and Adam nodded collectively, glad that Melanie was open to sharing information about herself. It was always nice to have a non-mysterious figure around.

Seeing that her idea was met with approval, she began her tale. "Okay, so it went down like this..."

 **{BEGINNING OF STORY}**

 _Yesterday..._

Melanie rested her hand in her palm as her elbow lay propped up on the desk as she sat in her, silent air conditioned Homeroom, with mere minutes left of class. She gazed up at the clock as her leg bounced seemingly a mile-a-minute. It was the last day of Sophomore Year at Eppingswood High School (An American international school in China), and she looked forward to the beloved summer vacation, as every student usually did. Melanie was never particularly deeply fond of school, so needless to say-she was excited. So excited that the only thing she could do was bounce her leg repeatedly to keep from whisper-yelling "Yes!", which would certainly invite some questionable stares from her classmates, and Melanie didn't want that, especially on the last day.

As her eyes remained glued to the clock, watching the seconds tick by agonizingly slow, she felt her phone vibrate in her hoodie pocket. She pressed the power button and saw that she'd gotten a text from Eileen.

 _ **Eileen: Wtf melanie**_

Upon seeing the text, she turned her head around in her chair to meet the humored gaze of her best friend, who was sitting infront of an empty desk that separated them.

 _"What?!"_ The tomboy mouthed with a silent laugh.

 _"THE LEG."_ Eileen mouthed back, sticking her own leg out and pointing at it for emphasis.

 _"Well I'm excited!"_ Came Melanie's silent reply.

 _"You look CRAZY!"_

 _"Oh screw you! I do not!"_ Melanie silently laughed once more, turning back around. Luckily, everybody had been engrossed in their phones (They were allowed this since it was the last day of school), so nobody noticed the silent exchange between the two best friends, including the teacher, who was busy grading the History finals submitted by the students.

Mere seconds later, the final bell of the year rung, signifying that school was over, and that summer had officially begun. Almost instantly cries of joy and random chatter amongst groups of friends erupted within the classroom at the glorious sound.

"Goodbye, class," Called Ms. Michaels. "Have a great summer vacation!" She was generally seen as a good teacher, which earned her extra-enthusiastic "YOU TOO's" from the entire class in response to her wishing everyone a fun summer.

"Ahh YES!" Melanie breathed, running a hand through her mid-length blonde tresses in pure relief. "No more school!"

"AMEN to that!" Eileen concurred, slapping her best friend a high five as they walked out into the sea of students pouring out of classrooms and into the halls. "Now where oh where is Mister Washington?" She pondered out loud, referring to Jared, the third member of their little group. Her vision scanned through the mass of students briefly until she spotted a familiar face.

"Hey!" Jared called out, in the process of untangling himself from crowds of people rushing to the exits. "It's like a fuckin' madhouse in here!" He laughed, finally reuniting with his two best friends.

"I know! Isn't it awesome?!" Melanie laughed, finding it funny how everybody was rushing at once, yet could understand exactly why. Eileen shook her head and smiled.

"This is ridiculous!" The Virtua Fighter managed over the extreme chatter in the halls. "Let's wait until these halls have cleared out some!" She proposed, knowing that they'd never make it out in a timely matter of they decided to leave right now. Her friends nodded and waited. After things had gotten a little less crazy out in the halls, the group of friends decided to make their way to their lockers, and get the rest of their stuff to bring home.

"Now that's better." Eileen giggled with a sigh as the three unlocked their lockers, which were all conveniently next to one another.

Jared nodded at Eileen's comment, as the three dug the remaining spiral and composition notebooks (and in Melanie's case, random loose papers) out of their lockers, and putting them in their bookbags before making their way toward the exit at the front of the school. "Man, thank God school is out. Now I can finally sleep in."

"I know right?!" Melanie agreed, being a fan of sleeping in herself. "No more dragging yourself out of bed at 5:30..." she trailed off intentionally.

"No more dealing with horrible teachers..." Eileen put in, pulling a face.

"No more studying for exams..." Jared added.

"And most of all," No. More. MATH." Melanie concluded, pumping her fist a single time in victory. "I can't tell you how happy I am to ditch that shit!" The tomboy grinned, over the moon that her "accursed" Dyscalculia would not be a part of her summer.

"So, plans, guys?" She asked her friends as they continued walking. "Aside from the obvious, that is."

"Probably just getting some training in for the Sixth World Fighting Tournament. It's supposed to start right before school starts next year." Eileen said, before going into a giddy fangirl moment with a gasp. "Oh my God! Maybe this time I'll beat your mom! She's like the best fighter EVER!"

Melanie looked at the brunette in amusement. It seemed that the knowing smile would never cease to make itself present on Melanie's features everytime she expressed her absolute admiration for her mother. Besides her, Eileen was the biggest Pai Chan fan out there, after all.

"You're such a fangirl, Eileen." Jared commented with a grin.

"How can I not be a fangirl of the greatest fighter ever?!" She justified with hand gestures, while widening her huge brown eyes. "It's impossible! But anyway, what have you got planned for this summer, Jared? Other than lying around on your lazy ass all day?"

"I am not laz-"

"Yeah you are." Both girls cut him off in unison.

"I-yeah I am lazy." Jared admitted with a smile, seemingly proud of it now.

"As for me, I got some training to do myself, as well as some videogames to look forward to. Maybe a fight or two..." The tomboy added with a challenging glint in her emerald green eyes, which were now looking over at Eileen.

Accepting the challenge, Eileen let out a sly giggle. "We both know you have trouble keeping up with my speed. But sure, I guess I can own you one good time if that's what you want." She finished with a smirk and a shrug, trying to get a rise out of her friend with those comments, ultimately succeeding.

Already looking forward to their fight, Melanie gazed back at the Virtua Fighter with narrowed eyes and a ready smirk. "Oh it's gonna be you who gets dusted, just watch!" The girls had fought and sparred with each other many a time. Sometimes, Melanie won some, and other times, Eileen would win some. But both fighters enjoyed every bout they shared, and were grateful of the friendly rivalry they shared.

"Melanie!" Called out a voice, suddenly, causing the three to turn around.

It turned out to be a kid none of them knew.

 _Why's he running up to me like that?_ She wondered, ever so slightly raising an eyebrow in confusion.

"Oh hey, Melanie, Ms. Michaels forgot to give you this." He said, handing her a stack of papers held together by a bind.

"Thanks!" She called out to the boy as he jogged off. Melanie simply groaned in dismay upon seeing what they were.

 _"Fuck!"_ She swore in disbelief. "Are you kidding me right now?" The papers she held in her hand were modified math problems for her to do over the summer. Eileen and Jared looked down at the papers, feeling sympathy for their best friend.

"This sucks." Melanie said dejectedly, idly flipping through the pages at a fast pace before putting the papers in her bookbag. "I was so looking forward to not having to deal with numbers this summer, now it seems I'm gonna continue suffering."

"Take it easy, girl." Eileen said softly, knowing how numbers and Melanie would never mix thanks to her rather bad Dyscalculia. She laid a reassuring hand on her friend's shoulder. "I'm sure your mom's not gonna force it all on you at once. She's nice. She'll probably make it easy on you."

"Yeah. And even if she doesn't, we'll come over and do stuff when she gives you a break. I mean, we still will even if she doesn't, but still, just know that we'll always be by your side." Jared added.

Melanie was quiet for a few seconds, before inviting a tiny smile onto her lips. "Thanks guys. You're really good best friends and I wouldn't trade you guys for anything." Earning smiles from her two closest companions.

"Aww, thanks, Melanie." Eileen said, feeling glad she and Jared were able to make her feel better.

"We wouldn't trade you for anything either." Jared replied with a grin, and causing Eileen to nod in utmost agreement. "And thanks."

Melanie felt her small smile grow into a full-fledged one that reached her eyes, her annoyance at having to do math over the summer being replaced with hope.

"You guys are probably right. My mom will probably won't shove it all down my throat. I mean, last year I didn't get any math to do over the summer. So since this is the first time, maybe she'll be lenient about it." She reasoned.

"Don't worry-she will." Eileen said with a wink.

Rounding the hallway corner, all three teenagers instantly took on a look of extreme annoyance at the sight of a disliked face among the three of them, particularly Melanie.

Erin Anderson.

The popular girl in school. Straight A student, head of the cheerleading squad, and school brat. Redheaded, always wore heels, expensive clothing, and makeup. She looked down on everybody that "couldn't keep up with her status", always traveled with a posse of fellow brats, and never had a good word to say to anyone other than herself. When Andrea got wind of the fact that Melanie was relatively well-known amongst the school due to the fact that she was the daughter of the ever-famous Pai Chan, she'd hated her ever since. The fact that she was a tomboy made her resent Melanie all the more. At first, Melanie thought it was funny how she pretty much had a stereotypical "popular girl" in her school, but as said girl took notice of Melanie, she quickly took a disliking to her, and her insults. But it was just an annoyance more than anything. Melanie never paid Erin any mind, and simply brushed off any insults that she fired. She wasn't going to get upset over some prissy girl's petty insults. And she damn sure wasn't going to ever turn into some brat like Erin either.

"Ugh. It's _you_. The tomboy."Erin spat upon seeing her, before dragging on her freshly lit cigarette.

"Yeah. It's me. The tomboy." The Mizongquan master replied dryly.

"Loving that outfit, by the way." The stiletto wearing blonde fake gushed, with obvious sarcasm.

Melanie made no comment.

"You know, you shouldn't even bother coming to this school next year. I just get more popular with every year, and by next year, I'll be bigger and badder than you'll ever be."the pompous girl snarked, as her four "clique" members grinned maliciously at Melanie.

That's what she thought this was. A popularity competition. Please.

Melanie sighed. "Look, Erin, I'm not trying to outshine you or anything. I couldn't give a fuck about how popular I am around here. I'm just doing my own thing, alright?" She finished with an edge at the last part.

In response, Erin momentarily left her associates to walk over to Melanie and leaned in close. Their noses were almost touching. The tomboy could clearly smell the other girl's perfume as she unblinkingly stared into her chestnut-coloured eyes-neither of them speaking for several seconds. Eileen and Jared mutely traded troubled glances, unaware of what the girl had in mind for their friend.

Finally, still in Melanie's face, Erin spoke In a lowered voice. "That's what they all say. Then they try to pull some stunt they think will put them higher than me. Don't do anything stupid, don't try to be popular." She then pursed her cherry red lips ever so slightly as if to say "Or you'll be sorry." She then returned to her small crowd.

"Let's go." She prissily asserted to her cohorts, flinging the cigarette to the tile floor as she and her posse strutted off.

"Whatever." Melanie scoffed with a small shake of the head once Erin and her followers were out of earshot.

"You okay, Melanie?" Jared asked with concern, having witnessed the entire exchange along with Eileen.

Melanie nodded in a casual manner, not looking fazed in the slightest, which she wasn't.

"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well-I mean..." He trailed off before smiling, knowing his friend never particularly cared about anything Erin said. "Actually...nevermind.

"I wonder why Erin never gives the whole "Don't try to get more popular than me" to me." Eileen mused as the three of them walked along the sidewalk, now well off school grounds. "I mean, I'm a Virtua Fighter, one of the world's best fighters. And at least a _little_ bit popular at school."

"It's because she likely associates all fighting with hotheadedness, knowing her." The tomboy started, rolling her eyes, knowing that not to be the case at all. "And because of that, she thinks you'll pop off and kick her ass if she tries to assert her dominance with you. And she'd jump off a bridge before she risks ruining her face."

"That makes sense." Eileen said with a nod. Though she still knew that she and Jared were still looked down upon by the prissy redhead. "Hey, you guys wanna go get some Rita's?" This caused Melanie arch an eyebrow.

"They have that here?" Jared asked incredulously.

"Uh huh. It's not too far from our location, actually."

"Then let's do it." Came Jared's reply.

"Melanie?" Eileen asked rhetorically, with a tiny laugh.

"Totally! Rita's is some of the best stuff on Earth! Why wouldn't I?!" She answered with a smile.

"Then it's settled." Eileen replied. "I think It's like a couple of blocks away from here."

"Awesome." She replied, her smile remained. Water ice was her favorite cold thing to eat, better than ice cream. When her orphanage took a trip to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States a number of years ago, Melanie had stumbled upon a Rita's while sightseeing. She hadn't known that water ice existed before, and was curious to try it, and did. Something that would be remembered as one of her best experiences in the city of brotherly love. That, along with tasting scrapple for the first time at a diner.

"I should probably tell my mom I'll be home a little late." Melanie brought up, pulling out her phone.

"Yeah, me too. I don't want to worry my grandfather to death by not telling him where I am, either." That was Eileen.

The two girls sent their texts to their respective figures of authority explaining where they would be as the three of them rounded the street corner, seeing their destination in the distance.

"Sweet!" The Mizongquan fighter exclaimed, raising her eyebrows in surprise. "Looks like there really is a Rita's here Hong Kong after all! Not that I didn't believe you Eileen, it's just so weird to see one of them outside America."

"Hehe, yeah, tell me about it." She agreed with a grin, glancing over to the tomboy.

The three of them got in line and got their water ice. With Melanie already getting started on her large cotton-candy flavoured water ice, Eileen holding a medium cherry flavoured one, and Jared holding a medium raspberry flavored water ice, the three best friends strolled over to a nearby small brick wall, which they sat comfortably on as they ate, watching cars go by.

"Hey guys," Jared spoke up, a somewhat sorrowful look about him as he glared at his phone. "You're never going to believe what just happened in Wood Oak City."

The two martial artists both looked at him, and raised one of their eyebrows.

"Wood Oak City?" Eileen parroted, in an inquisitive manner, having never heard of the city before.

"Yeah. It's a city in a country called Lima. It's right near the U.S. The boy explained. "Anyway, I just got a news alert on my phone that some guy just brutally beat a class of third graders on a field trip. He shot the teacher, killed half of the kids and abducted the rest."

They were disgusted at the news.

" _Shit..._ " Muttered Melanie.

"That's horrible!" Eileen replied.

"Are the police at least trying to track down the guy?" Melanie inquired, frowning while raising an eyebrow.

"I doubt it. All the cops they've got in Wood Oak City are corrupt. Murders, rapes, robberies, all that stuff-happen in broad daylight and the cops are no help."

The girls were taken aback.

"This seems like one of the worst-if not the worst city of all time! I mean, what the hell?! Does this stuff happen all the time?" Eileen asked after her little mini-rant.

"Not all the time. The city is actually a happy, peaceful place-that is, before crime takes over. It happens periodically, and now seems to be one of those times."

"Still," Eileen started mournfully, looking slightly downward. "I feel so bad for those innocent people over there. It must really suck for them. I mean, they're plagued by crime and there's nothing they can do about it."

Jared smiled. "Maybe not them..."

"What are you getting at, Jared?" Eileen asked, looking over to her dark-haired friend. As did Melanie.

"There's this vigilante group called Firestorm that personally takes care of the criminals that show up. They're responsible for restoring peace back to the city."

This time, it was Melanie's turn to comment first. "A vigilante group?" She parroted with interest, before her expression changed from an inquisitive one to a smiling one. "That sounds awesome! How decorated are they?"

Jared ran his hand through his dark hair. "Well, I'm not sure exactly, but it's got to be like, 4 or 5 times they've saved their city."

"But isn't that kind of...unimpressive though?" Eileen wondered. "I mean, it makes sense if they're new to this sort of thing."

"Nope. That's very impressive for Wood Oak City. It's the biggest city in the world." Jared remarked.

Melanie nodded understandingly with a smile, impressed, and wanting to know more. "So who are the members of Firestorm?"

Jared shrugged in response. "Not sure. What's weird about these news alerts on my phone is that they don't call any of the members by name. I have no idea what their names are or how many of them there are."

"A little bit of mystery, huh?" Came the tomboy's musing remark.

"Oh boy. Jared," Eileen started with a playful roll of the eyes. "You've gotten her curious."

"Damn right he did." Melanie returned with a smile. "I know we're in China and not Lima and everything, but I can't believe more people here in Hong Kong don't talk about them more."

"Maybe they're just not that known here." Eileen shrugged. "I'm sure that in some other places people know about them. But anyway, it's good to know that those innocent people in Wood Oak City have a team of fighters to keep their city safe." The other two nodded in agreement. Having finished their water ice, the three finally hopped off the wall.

"Well, I better get going, guys." Eileen announced. "I'm sure my grandpa wants me back at the house for training."

Jared unpocketed his phone and looked at it. "And it turns out my mom wants me back home too. Gotta clean the house." He said, slightly disheartened. "But I'll totally text you guys later when I'm done." He said, his tone more upbeat this time.

Melanie smiled. "See you later guys!" She called out to her friends, who had each waved back and started on their own way home, leaving Melanie to do the same. The first thing she was going to do when she got home was squeeze as much information out of the internet as possible on Wood Oak City-especially Firestorm. Thoughts raced through her head as to what the vigilante team would really be like. The mere act of doing so brought a smile to the girl's face. As she walked, she got a sudden and strong urge to listen to her music as her mind raced on. Never one to deny her instincts (especially when it came to listening to good music), Melanie reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone and earbuds, and she went to do just that.

She smiled as she pulled up her massive library of songs. Every single one of them was either R&B, or Hip Hop. They were mostly the classic kinds, too. Those types of music just seemed to appeal most to Melanie. Anything else just wasn't her thing, save for some techno here and there. But she hated Metal, Country, and especially those sappy boy bands. She liked to listen to REAL music. Scrolling down the list, she finally decided on _I'll Be In The Sky_ by B.O.B. It may not have been a classic Hip-Hop song, but it gave Melanie chills every time the delicious melody reached her ears. She stuck in her earbuds, connected the earbuds to the phone, and pressed PLAY.

With the song playing in her ears, Melanie's mind returned to Firestorm as she set her walking speed to a brisk pace, eager to get home as fast as possible. How many members would there be? Would said members be the type of fighter she was used to seeing? Or something different? What intense things had they been through in the past? Who led them? In any case, she knew she would be greatly satisfied with what she found out about the vigilante team. She was so eager to know. So many questions, and no answers to them.

Yet.

Shortly afterwards, the tomboy arrived at her house. After ascending the small concrete flight of stairs, she found herself at her front door, digging through her pockets to find her key, before inserting the small metal object into the keyhole, and pulling on the doorknob.

"Mom! I'm home!" The Mizongquan fighter called out as Her nostrils were greeted by the ever-familiar and comfortable scent of her house. Tossing her bookbag into a nearby chair, she wandered into the family room where her mother and uncle sat on the couch, momentarily putting their conversation on hold to acknowledge her.

"Hi sweetheart." Pai greeted her daughter with a warm, motherly smile.

"Hey, Mom," She breathed, slightly out of breath, before turning to her uncle and giving a small wave. "Hey, Uncle Akira."

"Hello, Melanie." Akira nodded from where he sat. He had been in China for a few days now to get a much needed change of scenery from Japan due to the encouragement of his grandfather to do so. When Pai found out her good friend was visiting China, she insisted that Akira stay with her instead of in some hotel, leading to Akira gratefully accepting the offer and temporarily staying with Pai and her daughter. "How was your last day of school?"

"Pretty good. That History final was nothing. I breezed through it with no sweat." She said, causing both other Kung-fu masters to nod in satisfaction.

"That's good. I'm really proud of you, Melanie." She praised with a big smile. "Did you get those papers your teacher wanted you to do for the summer?" She asked in a casual manner. Her question caused Melanie's jaw to drop.

 _Wait, what?! She was in on this?!_ Melanie thought in disbelief before mentally slapping herself on the forehead. _Duh! I should've known! She would have had to tell my math teacher to send the papers home in the first place!_ In honesty, it was just now occurring to her. Back at the school, when she'd first gotten the papers, she had been too distraught by receiving them to consider the fact that her mother could have possibly asked for her teacher to give them to her.

As Melanie was fixing her lips to say something, her mother put up a hand to stop her as she rose from her seat.

"Before you say anything, I know how much you hate math, so I'm only going to have you do a sheet and a half per day." Pai finished with a small smile.

Melanie was overjoyed at this news, evident by the huge smile appearing across her features. A page and a half a day? That was way less than she'd originally thought! Her friends had been right! In order to express her gratitude to the Virtua Fighter, Melanie practically tackled her into a crushing bear hug.

"You're the BEST, Mom!" The teen cried out appreciatively while still tightly embracing her mother.

"Nnnghh! Melanie, sweetheart..." Pai managed to strain out, wincing from the pain. "C-could you maybe relax your grip _just_ a tad?"

" _Oh shit!_ My bad! Sorry!"Melanie apologized profusely as her eyes widened in realization at the fact that she'd been squeezing her mother a little too hard. She instantly let go of Pai, who rubbed her now sore arms.

"Sorry, heh." She apologized once more with a guilty smile. Pai had donned a not-at-all angry look, a smile even, as she rubbed her arms slightly.

"It's alright, I completely understand." Her mother said with a smile. "You're obviously glad that you won't have to do much math. And also physically stronger. I could tell from that strong hug you just gave me."

"Yeah. Working out at the gym'll do that for you." The girl replied with a laugh.

Pai shook her head with a grin. "Such a tomboy." Causing both of them to laugh. They both knew the remark was obviously meant to be a joke. Pai accepted her daughter for who she was, and unlike possibly every mother on Earth, she was perfectly content with her daughter being a rowdy tomboy rather than a lady, and didn't to try and change her.

"I'm just so glad I won't have to do a whole lot of math!" Melanie enthused with a relieved sigh.

"You do know that I'm only making you do it for your own good, right?" Pai asked, raising an eyebrow in motherly suspicion.

"Yes, Mom." Melanie replied with a slight annoyance in her eyes, having been told many times before that extra studying and work was beneficial when it came to math. Pai smiled slightly, satisfied that her point had apparently sunk in.

"Why don't you get a snack? I imagine you must be hungry by now, especially since you didn't have any lunch." Her mother pointed out as she sat back down in the soft chair she'd risen from moments earlier.

As Melanie was about to decline her mother's offer, her stomach let out a starved growl loud enough for them both to hear. Had she really been that hungry?

Pai raised an amused eyebrow at her daughter, awaiting her response.

"Well..." She started, mulling the decision over briefly. "I was kinda in a hurry to get to my room...but... I guess I could eat a little something. Like a bell pepper."

She jogged over to the silver refrigerator, and pulled open the bottom square-shaped compartment, in search of a nice, delectable bell pepper.

"Not the red ones!" The actress called over her shoulder at Melanie. "Those are the ones that I cook with."

"I know. I got an orange one." She called back, grabbing the vibrant pepper and leaning against the counter of the kitchen island. After giving it a gentle squeeze, to make sure it wasn't mushy, she brought it to her mouth and bit into the vegetable as if it were an apple or pear. She smiled as she chewed the crunchy pepper, smiling at its wonderful taste. They were one of her favorite things to eat, and although she liked all kinds of bell peppers, the orange ones in particular were definitely her most preferred-one of her favorite things to eat.

I guess I could try to start looking up Firestorm up now... She thought to herself as she ate. With her free hand, she dug her phone out and opened up Safari, even though the signal was rather weak in the kitchen area of the house. She furrowed her brows in annoyance as she aimed her emerald orbs down at the device. It was flickering between one and two bars and loading Google at under a snail's pace, but she just wanted to get some sort of information on the vigilante team, her sole reason for even attempting.

"So," Pai started, looking over to Akira, continuing their conversation from earlier, her chocolate brown eyes seemingly gleaming with wonder. "A vigilante, eh? I'll be honest, Akira, I never thought I would see you as one. But it's a noble thing to do and I'm glad that you're doing it. Even if it's not permanent."

Before the hot-headed Bajiquan master could give so much as a nod of the head in thanks, Melanie spun around and jumped in the conversation.

"Wait, what the FUCK? Uncle Akira, you're gonna be a VIGILANTE?!" The girl yelled with wide eyes around a mouthful of bell pepper, having not received this news. Like Pai, she hadn't expected Akira to ever get involved with anything such as vigilantism, but her tone carried a clear message that she thought the idea of him taking matters into his own hands when it came to this was awesome!

Akira nodded. "Yes. Tomorrow, I will be aiding a team of vigilantes that go by the name Firestorm."

Melanie simply stared at her uncle mutely, her mouth agape.

"You're helping Firestorm clean up Wood Oak City?! That's epic!" Melanie replied, her tone giving off the impression that she'd been longtime fans of theirs. Pai noted this, and curiously raised an eyebrow.

"How do you know what Firestorm is?"

"Jared told me a little bit about them today. He gets worldwide news alerts on his phone that let him in on stuff like this." Melanie said, leaving the counter in favor of sitting in the chair across from the one that her mother sat in. She then turned to Akira excitedly. So how did this whole thing get started?!"

"One of the members of their team, Axel Stone contacted me and asked me to assist them in their latest endeavor."

Melanie's already big grin stretched even wider at the mention of one of the Firestorm vigilantes by name.

"He's gotta be an awesome fighter with a name like that."

"He is." Akira nodded. A while ago he came to Japan in search for weapons for his martial arts dojo. I saw him on his way out of a Katana store, and we made conversation. I asked him what style he specialized in, and his answer-all of them."

"You challenged him to a Bajiquan match, didn't you?" Melanie grinned knowingly at her uncle.

"Indeed. At my dojo. I managed to beat him, but he came extremely close to winning. I would even say his skills are close to that of a Virtua Fighter.

"Man, wish I could've been there to see..." She trailed off, shaking her head with a smirk. She just could've imagined her uncle going up against a member of an amazing team of heroes. She would have continued to speculate on their fight, but at that moment another question came to mind.

"Is he the leader?" She asked curiously, not breaking eye contact with her uncle while speaking. Despite knowing extremely little about this Axel Stone, something about him said that he might be the one leading Firestorm.

"Not anymore." Akira shook his head. "He held that position in the team's first and second missions, after that, he relinquished that role to his friend, said to have excellent leadership skills.

Melanie nodded understandingly, a smile still on her face. "So what're you guys gonna be going up against?" She couldn't help but ask excitedly.

"Axel told me that J6 has formed an alliance with another criminal organization. We're going to stop them."

A look of pure shock appeared across Melanie's face, the excited expression that had previously been in its place gone. She briefly looked down at her hands contemplatively. Then furrowed in the slightest degree. So slightly that Akira didn't even notice. But Pai did. She'd come to know her daughter nearly as well as she knew herself, and was deeply curious as to what was on her mind at that moment.

"Mom, can I go to Wood Oak City with Uncle Akira and help Firestorm?" She asked suddenly, now carrying a neutral expression.

 _"Dear God, no!"_ Pai said, extremely taken aback by the question.

"Oh come _on_ , Mom!" Came Melanie's reply.

"Absolutely not!" Pai frowned, crossing her arms over her chest. "I didn't adopt you so you could go to someplace like _Wood Oak City_ and get yourself killed!"

"I wouldn't get killed! I'm a really great fighter! You said so yourself!" Melanie persisted.

"I know what I said." She spoke in a low tone, allowing irritation to seep into her voice. "But I'm not sending you down there with those thugs."

"But that's all they are! Thugs! You're the one who trained me on how to deal with those situations!" She frowned, emphasizing her point with hand gestures.

"We're _not_ talking about a tournament, Melanie." The Asian actress was yelling now. "These are lowlife! Today, a group of kids were _shot_ and _abducted_! Do you want that to be you?!"

Tears threatened to brim in Pai's eyes at that moment. She had already lost her mother, and she would be losing her father in a few short weeks. The thought of her having to endure the death of another family member was almost too much.

"Mom," Melanie began in a serious tone, desperately wanting to prove her point. "I know that alot of fucked up shit happens in Wood Oak,—"

"Then you would understand why you're not going!" Pai yelled, cutting her daughter clean off.

"—but the city isn't even bad on a regular! The only time it erupts into chaos is when the thugs start showing up!" She paused slightly, only for Pai to use this opportunity to cut her off again.

 _"Are there thugs running rampant in the city now?"_ Pai asked. Her head was tilted downward, and she was pinching the bridge of her nose, eyes now closed. However, her voice was full of sudden calmness. But Melanie knew it wasn't genuine. If anything, it only showed that her anger had increased.

Melanie rolled her eyes and responded in an annoyed teenage tone. " _Yes, Mom_."

Displeased due to feeling she wasn't getting her point across to Melanie, Pai sharply glared at her for a split second before continuing. "Then I don't know what's so hard to understand!"

"No Mom, _you_ don't understand." She started in a neutral tone, yet it was easy to tell that she was serious. "There are three reasons why I feel like I need to help. First off, the city isn't always a place filled with crime. I want to get it back to how it should be. Earlier when Jared told me about Wood Oak City when it's corrupted, I thought it sucked pretty hard for the people who lived there, and felt bad for them. Nobody should have to live that way."

She paused again, scanning her mother's face in attempt to determine what she was thinking—something that proved impossible at the moment due to Pai's unreadable expression. She said nothing, only concentrating on locking her brown eyes onto her daughter's as she spoke.

When Melanie got no interruption this time, she continued talking. "The second reason is because I feel like this is my chance to pay back J6 for what they did to Aunt Sarah."

Pai crossed her arms and arched an eyebrow. "I would have assumed that you wouldn't have wanted to be there to fight her. She _is_ a part of J6 now. And facing J6 would mean possibly facing her, you may very well have to fight her directly." She said, sounding annoyed at the conversation, yet her voice also reflected genuine interest in what Melanie had said, knowing family was _extremely_ precious to her.

Melanie exhaled deeply. "Yeah, I know. But I also know that some things just have to happen for the better."

Pai's irked air vanished completely upon hearing that from her daughter. Upon getting word that Sarah had become an assassin again, she'd sat Melanie down and deeply discussed the matter with her. It was terribly hard on Melanie, knowing one of her family members was evil, and she wasn't herself for a few weeks. But she had eventually gotten through it, much to the joy of her mother and peers.

"And it's not like I'll be going in alone. I'll be a part of a team. Not saying that I won't pull my own weight, but I'm sure the other members of Firestorm would have my back." Melanie persisted, glad to see that her mother's face had softened.

Pai was at least willing to reconsider after that part, it was clearly written across her face, and further proven evident by her shifting her weight onto one leg.

Akira who had been observing all of this from where he sat, decided to throw in his two cents. "Melanie _has_ come an extremely long way as a fighter, and has become a strong warrioress, Pai. She's nearly a master in Ensei-ken, after all.

Both female martial artists turned to look at Akira after he'd spoken. Pai gave a sort of microscopic smile at what he had said, his words causing memories to return to her. Memories of training Melanie to be a Virtua Fighter and seeing her make indescribable progress in mastering the art, even her amazement at her daughter creating her own rendition of it. The pride she'd felt in her daughter's abilities—it was enormous as both a mother and a teacher.

Melanie's smile had been alot bigger, due to her uncle's comment. A _warrioress_. What a compliment! Such words showed that Akira had faith in her, just as she had faith in herself. But it also bothered her as well. Her uncle saw that she was capable, yet her mother couldn't? She couldn't give up on trying to convince Pai. Melanie simply turned to face her.

"...You _have_ come a long way in Mizongquan..." Pai mused thoughtfully, rolling her eyes at the ceiling in deep thought. In reality, it was no more than twenty seconds, but felt like forever to Melanie at that moment before her own thoughts began running through her head.

 _What's she thinking? Is she gonna say yes? God, the suspense is torture!_

She was snapped out of her thoughts by the sound of a long, sudden breath being let out by her mother.

"I suppose...I'll let you go." She said slowly, closing her eyes.

Melanie beamed extremely wide, bright green eyes widened as well, shining with utter happiness and joy. In honesty, her face could have lit up the entire city at that moment.

 _"SHIT! THANK YOU SO MUCH! YOU'RE THE BEST, MOM!"_ The tomboy yelled, attacking her mother in another near-suffocating bear hug. She was obviously excited, and rightfully so.

" _Urg!...You're squeezing a bit too hard, Melanie!_ "

Briefly chastising herself mentally for making the same mistake twice, she immediately released Pai.

"Sorry!" She apologized. It was genuine, yet a smile delicately played at her lips. It evolved into a full-on smile as she launched into another sentence.

"This is awesome! I gotta tell Eileen and Jared about this!" She yelled, racing off to her room, to tell her friends the news. Pai and Akira watched her go. The former starting to wonder if she should change her mind, but decided against it. Even still, the many dangers of Wood Oak City (from what she'd heard from Akira) going through her head, and Melanie's words coming right after. Pai sighed in exhaustion.

" _This girl..."_ She muttered, trailing off, feeling a dull throbbing sensation above her eyes. She instinctively squeezed them shut, in a vain attempt to ease the pain.

"I need a drink." She said tiredly, finally understanding why parents—especially parents of teenagers often did this. She opened the cabinet and took out a bottle of Baijiu and a short glass before turning to Akira.

"Would you like some, Akira?" She asked her friend courteously.

Akira declined her offer.

Melanie excitedly burst into her room, all too eager to share the news. She'd begun to scan her room for her laptop, which she would need to use to Skype with her friends. Though she frowned, due to the laptop being nowhere in sight. But that wasn't a surprise, really. Her room regularly looked as though a tornado had swept through it, and today was no exception. While half of the articles of clothing had landed inside the hamper, the other half lay _beside_ the hamper, (something that annoyed Pai to no end) and there were _tons_ of videogame cases strewn all over the shelves. The only thing that was actually in any sort of order were her Max Thunder posters, with one being on each wall. She took off her bright green Nikes before once again scanning her room.

 _"The hell is it?!"_ She grumbled, digging through the masses of her various possessions with her hands, in attempt to find her laptop, to no avail. Mere seconds after she'd let out a frustrated huff and running a hand through her blonde hair in thought, it hit her like a blow to the face, much like the ones she would be handing out in the very near future.

"My TV! That's where I put it!" She exclaimed, snapping her fingers. Melanie spun her head to face her TV, and sure enough, it was in the open compartment right under the flat top of the stand where the TV sat. Despite her intense excitement at that moment, she took a brief moment to smile at her collection of videogame systems. Said collection consisted of a SEGA Genesis, Saturn, Dreamcast, and Master System, and an Xbox 360 Slim—for modern gaming. Constantly winning tournaments meant constant prize money, which allowed her to afford all of the various systems. But it wasn't the money that made Melanie enter. It was her enormous desire to fight.

After flopping down on her unmade bed, she opened the laptop, then turned it on, hearing it softly whir to life. Excitement swirled inside her as she punched out a group text to her friends to jump on Skype while she waited for the machine to boot up. Just as she finished, the glare of the blue login screen faintly illuminated Melanie's excited face as she clicked on Skype, still making no attempt to fight the grin that had appeared across her features ever since her mother had uttered those precious words.

Then by flawless timing, two identical windows popped into view on Melanie's screen. For a second, they were black, until they simultaneously showed her two best friends, Eileen and Jared, in their respective rooms. Their expressions were inquisitive, yet they showed that they were happy to see their friend.

"Guys!" The tomboy started intensely, running a hand through her hair, the news having long bubbled to her inner surface. "You'll never guess what!"

Jared gave a short laugh. "Well you're pretty excited, so it's gotta be something big. What?"

"Alright, you guys are never gonna believe this," She took a tiny pause, almost creating a dramatic effect. "But I'm going to Wood Oak City!"

Eileen could only raise her eyebrows wordlessly. Her mouth hung slightly ajar.

"Wait, you mean the one I told you guys about earlier?" He asked, taken aback, also raising his eyebrows.

A cool, but still excited grin seemed to spread even wider across Melanie's face. "That very one. I leave tomorrow."

" _What?! Why?!_ " Eileen shouted, using wild hand gestures.

"Because I'm going to be giving Firestorm a hand with kicking ass!" She answered, flashing a pearly white smile at the end of her sentence.

She practically heard their priceless reactions before they even said them.

" _Jesus Christ!_ Melanie, you're crazy!" The young Hou-quan practitioner yelled, hands on the sides of her head, not literally thinking that her friend was completely crazy, but just crazy for doing something like this.

"What. The. _Hell_?" Jared spoke slowly, soon after Eileen's statement.

The reactions the soon-to-be heroine received after giving the news caused her to fall into the bed in laughter. Eileen and Jared both wanted to know more, but couldn't resist the urge to slightly shake their heads as they saw Melanie's guffawing form disappear from view, only to reappear back on the screen seconds later as she moved back in front of the screen.

"Okay, so," Melanie started, getting out her last few snickers. "J6 and this other syndicate have apparently teamed up, so we're going in to put a stop to whatever they've got going on." She finished with a grin, which quickly faded as she remembered to bring up a point, her voice taking on a slightly more serious tone. "And I'm pretty sure this other syndicate has been behind all the crimes that have been happening around Wood Oak City!"

"So if you guys beat them, the crime rate in the city would stop! Or at _least_ go down tenfold." Eileen said, causing Melanie to nod her head.

"They're probably looking to take control of the world _again_ , knowing J6." The tomboy said spitefully, knowing their primary goal ever since the First World Fighting Tournament.

"Are you sure you're up for this, though?" Jared asked with concern, furrowing his brow. "I know J6 are real assholes from what you told us before, and that you hate them for what they did to your aunt..." He trailed off, letting Melanie speak.

But she didn't. Not initially, anyway. Instead she nodded, acknowledging her friend's concern for her. It wasn't a quick nod, nor was it a slow one. "Yeah. I'm positive. I've hated these guys from the moment my mom told me about them. Finally, I get the chance to bring them down." She said, not at all angry, but with an air of decisiveness, before continuing. "You guys remember those three weeks where I was pretty much depressed after my mom told me what they did to my Aunt Sarah?"

They both nodded, not breaking eye contact.

"That's part of why I need to go. I can at last get back at those pricks for tearing at my family." Melanie continued, saying the last part in a firm tone. Her friends nodded in understanding, but not without seeming to tense. They knew that it wasn't directed toward them in the slightest, but they knew all too well that family was indispensable in her eyes. A sudden terrible silence swept over the three teenagers. Melanie, knowing she was the cause of it, spoke up.

"You guys _do_ know I'm not mad or anything right?" She asked with a smirk. Her infectious smile reached Eileen and Jared, shattering the tension between them right after it had formed.

"Well...you just had this _look_ , I guess." Eileen said, blushing slightly while awkwardly rubbing the back of her smooth neck.

"Sorry." Melanie apologized with sincerity, looking down for a split second as her smile slightly faded. "Didn't mean to come off like that, I guess I was just really serious, I guess."

"It's no problem, Melanie. We get it. And we don't doubt you either, it's just that...it would _suck_ if anything happened to you down there..." Jared trailed off, knowing in detail how dangerous the city could get, and frowning slightly at the thought of losing his friend to some two-bit criminal, or J6 themselves.

Melanie beamed, glad to have such kind and caring friends. "Heh, thanks guys. It really means alot. Really does. You guys rock for caring so much."

"Don't mention it girl!" Eileen giggled, her cheery tone indicating that she'd stopped feeling the tension too, and the mere sight of Jared's wide smile said the same for him. "But I _do_ wanna know you even got the chance to go to Wood Oak City." She said, her tone marked with sudden curiosity.

"I'm going with my awesome uncle." She smiled. "He got called down to help out, by Axel Stone. He's one of the members."

"Axel Stone huh?" Jared said thoughtfully.

The blonde girl nodded, idly rubbing her socked feet against one another.

"Axel's not really a common name, though." Eileen noted. "I'm not saying that I don't like it, but still, he doesn't exactly sound like someone I would find in a World Fighting Tournament. I wonder what he looks like…" The young Hou-quan practitioner mused, rolling her big brown eyes up to the ceiling in gentle thought before widening them as she thought of another question for Melanie.

"Will you be able to afford a plane ticket though? They get expensive!" Eileen pointed out with an audible incline in her voice near the end.

"Uh huh. Mom has an extra savings account especially for these things, and it's loaded with money, so getting a plane ticket won't be a problem." Melanie answered with an unconcerned, wave. She would have chipped in herself, but she only had one account in the bank, and it needed to remain untouched for other reasons.

"Well that's g—" Jared started before being cut off by a distant-sounding slamming noise. The group went silent as an also distant-sounding female voice called out.

" _Crap_. That's my mom." Jared mumbled, easily identifying the sound. "I should go. Sorry guys."

"Aww…" Eileen, said with a slight pout, dejected that one of her friends had to leave the chat. "Just when the conversation was getting good, too."

"It's cool, Jared, I totally understand." Melanie said, resting her cheek in her palm with an understanding air, having just gone through something with a parent herself. Being a teen wasn't as hard as being an adult could be per se, but it certainly wasn't a walk in the park, either.

Eileen adverted her gaze to the bottom left of her screen at something the other two couldn't see, her clock. "I guess I should be getting off too. I remember my grandfather wanted me to do something for him around this time. Guess it's a small world." She said with a smile and a tiny shrug.

"Yeah, really." Jared chuckled.

"Well, I guess I'll see you later guys!" Melanie bade. "I'll text you guys all about it!"

"Sounds good!" Eileen chirped back, speaking for both her and Jared at that moment. "Kick some ass, we love youand _BE_ _CAREFUL_! Bye!"

Jared simply grinned and gave a 'cool' head bob goodbye, that said the same thing that Eileen had just then, and although obviously less vocal, it conveyed the same amount of affection.

"Oh rest assured, I will! Bye! Love you guys too!" Melanie smiled, glad she and her friends were so close. They all shared a mutual 'love' for one another, but it was the platonic kind of love, the kind that only the best of friends shared. She gave them a sort of two-fingered wave before they'd all signed off of Skype. Jared first, Eileen immediately after, and then finally the soon-to-be heroine—Melanie.

Melanie came back into her room from the shower feeling refreshed later on that night. She had changed into a white short sleeved undershirt, and dark green pajama bottoms. She flopped down on top of her bedcovers, swinging her legs around so that she was facing the proper direction. With a content sigh, she leaned onto her pillow, resting her hands behind her head, feeling her somewhat damp from her shower, but ultimately not really caring.

As the night air from her ( _cracked_ ) open window regulated her still somewhat hot body temperature, she once again smiled to herself in anticipation and excitement, as she'd been doing all day, really. Akira had told her that Axel was more than willing to have her help out. Her uncle had also told her that they would be leaving for the airport at 3 AM tomorrow. As of now it was 8:50, but Melanie figured that she could sleep on the plane if she still felt tired. As she went to play out another action-filled Firestorm related daydream, there were three gentle knocks at her door.

Melanie's emerald green eyes darted to the the door before widening.

It obviously wasn't Akira—he wouldn't have knocked so softly. And there was only one other person in the house besides her and Akira…

 _Her mother._

A sudden wave of discomfort washed over Melanie knowing that the she still hadn't cleared the air with Pai yet. After talking to her friends that afternoon, she'd gone back into the living room to ask Akira the details about their travel plans, but her mother was currently there as well. There was no intended malice on Melanie's part—she'd just planned to go in, ask about the details, and take her leave. Yet she practically felt Pai's eyes on her the entire time. She _would have_ spoken, but upon entering the room, she'd felt some pretty heavy tension form between them in an instant. Melanie had definitely planned to diffuse this tension sometime that night—she really did, and would have done so earlier, but at the moment, the feeling had been far too great—she needed to let it settle before talking to her mother. But Pai seemed to want to talk things over now, which was perfectly fine with her. She loved her mother dearly—more than anything else in the world, and wanted to do away with this discomfort now as well.

"Yeah...?" She answered quietly, not taking her eyes off the door. "Come in."

The knob turned, and the door opened without a sound, revealing Pai, clad in her pajamas as well. Her sleeping attire consisted of a sleeveless white undershirt and red pajama pants with white stripes trailing down the legs. Her hair wasn't braided in its usual ox-horn style, instead, her dark tresses flowed angelically down her slim back. Melanie could see that she had a gentle expression about her.

"Melanie," She started gently. "I'm in the living room watching some TV. Care to join me?" The question was rhetorical, given that Pai knew that they hadn't had a real conversation since that afternoon about Wood Oak City, and the love that they held for each other. Something inside of Pai just knew that Melanie would give the response that she did. Said response had consisted of a small nod.

"Yeah, uh, sure." She accepted her mother's invitation, swinging her legs around the side of the bed and getting to her feet. They both padded barefoot out into the darkened hall, Pai in front, with Melanie trailing close behind.

Upon entering the living room, Melanie could see that the TV was already on, playing softly and partly illuminating the dark room with its somewhat faint blue light. The two female fighters seated themselves on the comfortable tan beige couch, with Pai crossing one leg over the other, while Melanie assumed a regular sitting position.

"So...what's this?" The girl asked, seeing what looked to be a romance movie on HBO that she didn't recognize was on.

"I've got no idea, I was just flipping channels." She chuckled with a shrug. "We can watch whatever you want."

"Okay…" She nodded, aiming the remote at the TV and opening the TV guide. She scrolled through the blocks of channels until she came across Top 20 Most Shocking: Chases and Crashes on the truTV channel.

"This good?" She asked turning to Pai for her opinion. When she got a nod as a response, Melanie selected the channel, and sat back after setting the remote down on the glass table that stood next to the couch.

The TV was playing, but Melanie just stared ahead into space. Her green eyes unseeing. All she could think about was the talk that they would have. Not only was it the reason Pai wanted her in here, but to also spend time with her before she left.

 _When is she going to bring it up? Should I stop waiting and speak up first?_ She thought, looking down at her hands for a second, not even wanting to risk a glance over at her mother. She shut her eyes, Pai didn't seem to notice.

 _Fuck it._

"Mom…?" Melanie asked with eyes still closed, shattering the silence between them.

Pai knowingly looked over to her daughter. "Yes, Melanie?"

"I'm really sorry I flipped out at you and stuff." She sincerely apologized, finally opening her eyes to meet her mother's.

Pai put a loving arm around her daughter. "Apology accepted. If there's one thing that I've learned from all of this, it's that sometimes you just have to let your kids do what they've got to do." She said, giving a soft smile, which then faded with her next words. "And I apologize for my actions earlier as well."

Melanie's heart shattered at her mother's words. She guiltily looked down at her feet. "You were just doing your job as a mom. By looking out for anything that might hurt me." She said, taking a short pause. "Thanks for caring about me, Mom."

Pai's heart in turn had shattered at her daughter's words. A powerful wave of emotion swept over her, but she was able to hold herself together. She softly grabbed the tomboy's shoulders, and spoke in a gentle, yet serious tone of voice.

" _Melanie Chan_ ," The use of her full name caused Melanie to gaze straight into Pai's chocolate brown eyes, to give her her full, undivided attention. "of course I care about you. What kind of a mother would I be to not? I _never_ want to hear you thank me for such a thing again, understand?" She asked, still retaining that same tone, which showed no signs of anger.

Melanie nodded as a tiny smile came over her lips. "Understand." Her smile got bigger as she embraced Pai in a warm hug.

"I totally get that you only had my best interest in mind," Melanie said, still in the embrace. "And I love you."

"I love you too. With all my heart." Pai smiled back, hugging Melanie tightly. They broke the hug, and the Asian actress looked at her daughter once more. Melanie was glad they'd finally talked, that all tension between them had been dispelled without a trace. She felt as if she could now face her mother again. The mere thought caused her to smile to herself.

"So, a vigilante, huh?" Pai asked her in a soft tone. Melanie found some pleasant irony in this, seeing as she'd heard her mother ask Akira the exact same thing earlier that day. "Are you nervous?"

Melanie happily shook her head.

"I should have known. Nothing seems to scare you." She said with a chuckle. Then she remembered something from earlier that Melanie hadn't touched on. "You said that there were three reasons that you wanted to go with your uncle. What was the third one?"

"I love to scrap, and I've got no doubt that there's gonna be lots of ass to kick down in Wood Oak City." The tomboy replied.

Pai had to laugh at that one, causing Melanie to flash a white-toothed grin, even though it couldn't really be seen that well in the room, illuminated only by the TV's light. When Pai's short laughter died down, there was another silence between them. However this one only lasted about half of a second, and wasn't awkward like the previous one. This one had been comfortable.

"I suppose we'll both be traveling somewhere to fight tomorrow, hm?" Pai asked, putting a motherly arm around Melanie, who looked up at her mother with confusion.

"Huh? What do you mean, Mom?"

Pai looked back at her before shaking her head in realization. "My mistake, I must have forgotten to tell you," Her expression grew somewhat more serious. "I'm meeting your grandfather for a training sabbatical."

" _Grandpa Lau…"_ Melanie gasped, eyes widening slightly. She'd heard of her grandfather through Pai, how she'd been trained by him from her early childhood, his legendary fists, and most importantly, how he'd caused the death of Pai's mother and the resulting rift in their relationship. Melanie never got to meet him face-to-face due to his mysterious nature, always vanishing into the depths of China to hone his skills according to Pai.

"That's right." Pai nodded. "He wants to see me alone, he said so in a letter that he wrote to me. He says he thinks his...time is...almost up." She said sadly, folding her hands and looking at the floor. Melanie knew what she meant, and looked at the floor as well.

"How long will you guys be training for?" Melanie asked after the short silence.

"A week." She answered, before going serious. "That's why I need to be sure to learn everything I possibly can from him. I may have mastered Mizongquan, but I'm not perfect."

Melanie looked at her mother with adoration. She was always so focused and didn't mess around when it came to polishing and refining her own techniques and learning new Mizongquan maneuvers. It was one of the things that Melanie admired most about her mother.

"Well don't let the thought of me in Wood Oak City distract you from your training while you're down there, Mom." She said, placing a supporting hand on her mother's shoulder.

"I appreciate the reassurance, but I _will_ be worrying about you while you're in that city. I'm a mom, after all." Pai smiled. "But at the same time, I know you can do it. You're an incredibly strong young lady—not only do you have incredible fighting prowess, you've also gotten through some hard things that don't have to do with combat...the news that your grandfather has that terminal disease, the situation with your aunt..."

Melanie nodded, her face neutral. She figured that Pai couldn't have been a fan of the idea of her possibly fighting Sarah was good, either. Before J6 had fixed its grasp on Sarah, she and Pai had grown to be incredibly close friends, often chatting and training with one another whenever Sarah could get a break from college, even as those opportunities lessened, their relationship remained intact. It would be brought to a screeching halt and destroyed instantly with the unfortunate events concerning her brainwashing. Learning that Sarah had been under J6's control had been hard on Pai, too. But now, thankfully with time, Pai understood that certain things needed to happen for the better, like Melanie had said earlier.

"But, for the love of God, be careful out there, Melanie," Pai almost begged, placing a french-manicured hand on Melanie's cheek tenderly. "I've already lost my mother, and I'm about to lose my father. I don't think I could bear losing you too."

"I will, Mom, I promise, and I also promise to come home safely." The tomboy solemnly swore to her mother, who gently removed her hand from her cheek, returning it to her lap. "I know you'd kill me if I died on this mission." She said with a smile, trying to lighten the mood.

"Oh, definitely." She said with a wink, causing her and her daughter to release string of chuckles in unison.

"Oh, wait, I forgot about something." Melanie suddenly said.

"And what would that be?"

"You said you had already gotten the tickets for me and Uncle Akira, but...how? I mean, those can take up to days to get, can't they?"

Pai chuckled. "Being a famous star in the movie industry definitely has its advantages. You get things _alot_ quicker than other people would. I ordered the tickets after we discussed you going to the city earlier. They should be ready tomorrow, which is where we'll be going to pick them up before I drop you off at the airport."

"Awesome! I can't believe you got us tickets this quick! You rock, Mom!" Melanie exclaimed, wrapping Pai in yet another hug, which she gladly reciprocated.

"I suppose it must be late by now, what time is it?" Pai asked herself upon releasing Melanie, glancing at the digital clock. The numbers read 9:54.

"You should be getting to bed, it's already 9:54 and you need to be up early tomorrow." Pai told her daughter. Melanie then turned her gaze toward the digital clock, struggling to read the red numbers, but knew Pai was right, due to it being dark out, causing her to instantly give up on reading the clock. "I should really be getting some sleep too."

Melanie and Pai got to their feet to leave the living room and to go to their respective bedrooms, but not before turning off the TV (which had been completely ignored), off, blanketing the room in darkness.

"Night, Mom." Melanie said, looking back at Pai, even though she could barely make her out in the inky blackness.

"Goodnight, sweetheart."

Melanie looked at her mother a final time before heading off to her room.

In her bedroom, the tomboy slipped under the warm, soft covers, rested her head upon the pillow and tried to sleep, but found she was unable to. It was like expecting her to sleep on Christmas Eve, trying to fall asleep while tingling with excitement. After tossing and turning a few times, Melanie laid her body facing the ceiling.

 _God, this turned out to be a hell of a day,_ The girl thought with a smirk, hands rested behind her head. _Gonna be taking the fight to J6 personally. I'm finally gonna put those bastards down for good._ Her smirk widened, then fell as her thoughts became more sombre. _I don't want that to happen to me, though. It'd crush Mom. It must be hell for a parent to have to bury their kid._ Bringing herself out of her rather melancholy thoughts and back into her usual confident and optimistic mindset, she smiled. _But I won't let that happen. I was trained by the best of them._ She then closed her eyes, still awake in bed. _I can't wait to see what gets thrown my way down in Wood Oak City. But I'll be finding out tomorrow, I guess…"_

And with that final thought, Melanie Chan rolled over on her side and eventually allowed herself to be pulled into a nice, dreamless sleep.

"... _anie, Melanie!,_ " Pai was almost shouting, aggressively shaking her daughter in attempt to rouse her from her slumber. " _Wake up!_ "

On any other day when woken up so early, Melanie would have responded with a tired groan, and attempted to roll back over and go to sleep. But on this day, upon gaining her bearings, she threw the covers off of herself in an excited rush. Instantly wide awake, she hopped out of bed and ran into the bathroom to shower, brush her teeth and get dressed.

" _I'll be ready in 5 minutes!_ "

"Of all my years living in this city, I never knew that Hong Kong International Airport could get _this_ busy," Pai said, sitting in the busy airport with Melanie and Akira, waiting for their flight to arrive. "I can hardly see anything past all these people."

"I know right?" That was Melanie. She was struggling to see through the sea of people. It _was_ a ridiculous amount of people present. "It's like the hallways yesterday when they let us out for summer vacation!"

"At least it isn't too hot or too cold in here." Pai shrugged. Melanie nodded in agreement. The temperature was at a nice 70 degrees. So they were comfortable at the very least. Akira sat quiet and without motion.

" _ **ATTENTION TO ALL, THOSE WHO WILL BE TRAVELLING TO WOOD OAK CITY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, PLEASE MAKE YOUR WAY TO GATE NUMBER FIVE, I REPEAT, THOSE WHO WILL BE TRAVELLING TO WOOD OAK CITY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, PLEASE MAKE YOUR WAY TO GATE NUMBER FIVE. THANK YOU."**_ A female voice said over the PA system in Chinese.

"That's us!" Melanie enthused, standing up. Akira and Pai followed suit. They looked over at the line. Miraculously there weren't that many people at all at gate five, allowing them to jump right in line, after saying goodbye, of course.

"I'll check in with you two later," Pai said, planning to call them as soon as her schedule would allow. She stepped toward Melanie and hugged her tightly a final time.

" _Wǒ ài nǐ_." Pai said softly into her daughter's ear.

" _Wǒ yē ài nǐ, māmā."_ Melanie replied back, her voice also kind of soft. They broke the embrace, and Melanie watched her mother and uncle share a short, friendly hug.

"Goodbye, Akira." Pai said, with a slight smile.

"Farewell, Pai." Akira replied, his face serious, as usual.

With that, Akira and Melanie turned to head through gate five, as instructed. They then showed their tickets, and were granted access to board the plane.

"Have a safe flight." Pai called to them as they stepped through the gates.

"We will!" Melanie called back, waving. Akira turned around and nodded. Refacing the way to the plane, duffel bags in hand, the two fierce fighters advanced down the long, rectangular, reflective silver jetway. Thankfully, the turbines of Hong Kong's airplanes had been improved tenfold, which would make what would have been a two to three day trip a significantly shorter 14 hour one. Nodding their thanks to the man who took their bags to put in storage for the flight, they stepped into the winged metal craft that would unite them with their soon-to-be teammates.

 _ **14 hours later…**_

Melanie (who could barely contain her excitement) and Akira stepped off of the plane and onto the hot Wood Oak City pavement, walked the short walk to the terminal right after. After going through the security procedures, a woman in uniform—a navy blue dress and heels handed them their duffel bags at the baggage claim. but they noticed something about this woman in particular. She wore a deadpan expression and didn't even bother to tell them to enjoy their stay. This was likely due to the current circumstances of the city.

"We're in the city now. Stay alert." Akira muttered to his niece as they walked through the crowded airport. She responded with a nod. Though it definitely wasn't what they were used to, it was much more of a change for Melanie. Going from an Eastern area to a Western-type area was a _huge_ change visually. Different stores and restaurants, the signs on which only had English writing on them, as opposed to the English/Chinese translation on most signs on said signs, not to mention that the area was predominantly filled with Americans. Sure, she'd visited Philly that one time with her orphanage as a young child, but that was ages ago, and she'd partially forgotten what being outside of China felt like. It wasn't a bad thing, though. Upon entering the airport, she was instantly reminded of the pleasant aesthetics of a Western-esque area. A welcome and pleasant sight to see indeed.

Akira on the other hand, was used to seeing diverse sights and types of people. Being a Virtua Fighter had him travelling all over the world in order to reach the venues chosen by J6—Australia, France, Canada, all with their own respective visual characteristics and types of hotels to temporarily stay in. Inwardly, he wondered if there would ever be a World Fighting Tournament hosted in Lima.

"Man, the sun is crazy bright in Lima," Melanie said, catching the sunlight from out of the corner of her vision. She squinted and shielded her eyes from the unrelentingly bright sun that shone through a large window they passed by. The summertime heat itself wasn't an issue for her, in fact, she rather liked the hot weather, but Lima's (or at least Wood Oak City's) sun rays seemed to be intense in particular. But then again, she probably wasn't used to it yet. "What time is it?"

"Ten minutes after four," The Bajiquan practioner answered shortly, having taken a glance at a large clock that from the wall. They walked a ways more until they neared a chain of popular fast-food restaurants within the airport.

"Alright, Melanie," Akira started, stopping at a pillar that seperated a Starbucks and a McDonald's. "Axel Stone told us to wait for him here. He's blonde, young and muscular. We need to keep an eye out for him."

The girl gave a nod. "Got it."

Akira, being on the left, looked ten-o-clock from where they stood, while Melanie, being on the right, started looking two-o-clock for the vigilante. Fortunately the area near the restaurants wasn't as crowded as the rest of the airport, so they were able to get a relatively good view of the area. All they saw were faceless pedestrians pass by—some people dressed casually, others in uniform, people short, tall, skinny, fat…

From slightly afar, a figure came into Melanie's view. He walked strong and with a purpose. Melanie also noticed that he seemed to be walking toward them. Squinting her green eyes to be sure, she could see that he was blonde, and indeed very muscular. As he strode closer, she could see that he was wearing a white t-shirt, blue denim jeans, white sneakers. The deal sealer for Melanie that this was the man they were keeping watch for, was that he wore red fingerless fighting gloves, and that he had a blue headband tied around his head. This man perfectly fit Akira's description.

 _That has to be him._ Melanie thought. _It has to be._

She leaned in close to her uncle and nudged him in the arm. He slightly turned his head and saw her subtly point at the approaching figure. "Hey, I think I found him!" She grinned.

"Akira!" The man none other than the one and only, Axel Stone of Firestorm, called out softly with a subtle wave, getting closer to where they stood.

"Indeed," He told his niece, in response to what she had said. Now less than several paces apart, the two dojo owners reached out to shake hands.

"Axel, it's good to see our paths have once again crossed." Akira said with a nod and a tiny smile, glad to be in the presence of his most recent friend that he happened to have so much in common with.

"Definitely. It's been way too long." Axel responded, also smiling, and feeling likewise. He hadn't seen Akira since, he'd taken the trip to Kyoto to purchase weapons for his dojo.

"This here is my niece," He said, nodding to Melanie, his features going serious once more.

"Hi, I'm Melanie Chan," The girl introduced, smiling excitedly, over the moon and excited to be finally meeting a member of Firestorm. "It's so awesome to meet you! Your organization is the shit!"

Axel gave a little more than a slight smile, shaking Melanie's hand. "Heh. Thanks, Melanie. Nice to meet you. Akira told me you were coming to help us out with taking out The Syndicate and these Judgement Six guys my friend's told me about."

An eager nod from Melanie. "Totally!" She easily put two and two together and arrived at the conclusion that The Syndicate was the 'other organization' that J6 had teamed up with.

"Well I'm certainly glad you're eager. The more help we can get against these guys, the better chance we'll have at crushing these two organizations before they can do any further harm." The vigilante said with a somewhat serious tone, especially near the end.

Before either of the two Kung-fu practitioners could concur with the statement, Axel's cellphone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, and after glancing at the caller ID, turned to Melanie and Akira.

"One sec, I gotta take this," He told them briefly before raising the phone to his ear. "Yeah? Yeah, I have them...we're still at the airport, but we'll be heading back to my place soon...alright, I'll see you later then, bye Blaze."

Axel hung up the phone and pocketed it. "That was Firestorm's leader. She wanted to know if I'd ran into you guys yet. I told her we'd be heading back to my place to wait for her and the rest of the team."

"Lead the way." Akira said, giving a nod. And with that, the three began on their way to cross the airport, intent on reaching Axel's parked car outside, to arrive at his house later.

 **{END OF STORY}**

"So yeah, that's pretty much what happened, and what my life is like." Melanie concluded as she continued to walk with the team.

"Well from what you've told us, I'd say you have a really nice life. You're a lucky girl, Melanie." The team's British leader said.

Melanie smiled behind her. "Thanks, Blaze."

Skate dared to speak at that moment. "That," A tiny pause. "was a really cool story…" He had spoken so softly he wasn't sure anybody else heard, despite the otherwise silence all around them.

Melanie looked at him and smiled with a single nod. This particular smile silently thanked him.

"Your mother must really care about you. It's no wonder she almost didn't let you come." That was Max.

"Yeah." Melanie said, looking back at Max and nodded. "It _definitely_ wasn't easy getting down here, but that only proves how much she loves me." She said, happy, as well as wondering briefly how her mother's day went. She was likely asleep right now, so she would ask in the morning at a better hour, assuming their schedule allowed it.

"I didn't know you also came because you had something against J6," Axel said with an interested tone.

Melanie gave a rueful chuckle. "Yeah, I guess it just didn't come up earlier. I wasn't trying to purposefully keep anything from you or anything. You guys are obviously good people, and I trust you."

"Good to know." Adam smiled, looking over at her.

"Besides, I consider myself to be a pretty open book," She added on.

Skate decided to speak up again. Louder this time. "Sorry about those two times you went into depression."

Melanie's smile somewhat faded at his condolence. "It's okay. It just royally fucks me up inside when something bad happens concerning family. And I wasn't even diagnosed with depression or anything. My love for family just runs _that_ deep, I guess."

"I understand," Skate started, frowning himself, thinking he'd said something wrong due to her sudden change of mood. "And I'm really sorry I brought it up—just forget I even said anything."

To Skate's bewilderment, Melanie seemed not to mind at all. "Dude, it's fine," She laughed heartily, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Really. I'm not offended. It was just a really serious topic for me. And I appreciate that you showed your sympathy for my depression periods."

Skate blinked before responding with a smile. "Oh...no problem!" He managed to get out, rubbing the back of his head in a relieved-looking manner. And I'm, uh, glad I wasn't offensive in what I said."

Melanie responded simply by giving him a small but meaningful smile and once again resting her hand on her newest friend's shoulder as he rolled beside her, matching her walking pace. The other members had once again overheard the exchange and smiled to themselves upon hearing the two teens form a bond.

 _It seems that my niece will never be without a friend in her corner. Good for her._ Akira thought to himself. Even he found himself failing to fight the urge to give a _tiny_ smirk knowing his niece had a likable personality that had made her several friends, and was sure to attract even more friends as she went on in life. He was not sure if his smirk went unseen or not.

As Firestorm walked, they noticed their surroundings had begun to change rather drastically. What had started out as bright LED decorated buildings started to become run-down houses held together by rotting pieces of wood, the performance sports cars nicely parked on the side becoming dented car bodies without wheels, and the exotic looking bright blue brick street becoming dark, chipped and worn out. Graffiti had become more prominent, a telltale sign that thugs lurked around this area in particular.

"With JX around, this area of the city is a living hell," Axel said grimly, narrowing his eyes at the filth that lie ahead of him. "And it doesn't help that we're in the slums of all places, either.

"Yeah, no kidding," Adam scoffed, keeping his light brown eyes on the path ahead as well. "I just hope we find Souther in this damned dump fast. The slums were never a favorite of mine."

 _To each his own, Adam,_ Max thought with a smile, tightening his fists as he walked at the back of the group. _But I'm gonna have some fun._

 _ **To Be Continued in Chapter Four.**_

* * *

 _ **A/N: And here's the next chapter, guys! SO sorry it took this long to update, I'll try to work on getting these up quicker, promise.**_

 _ **As for the story itself, I hope you all enjoyed it, as well as my minor character I created, Jared Washington. I wanted Melanie to have a normal friend, as well as one that was a Virtua Fighter (Eileen), and I think I made a good choice making them all one group of friends in this story.**_

 _ **This chapter was obviously focused on Melanie, one of my OC's for this story (there will be more), but the following and other chapters will keep the spotlight on all of the characters rather than just one. Oh and for those who need a translation,** **"Wǒ ài nǐ", means "I love you", in Chinese. Similarly,** **"Wǒ yē ài nǐ, māmā", means, "I love you too, Mom", in the same language.**_

 _ **And on a final note, to those of you that haven't already, GO LISTEN TO**_ _ **I'LL BE IN THE SKY**_ _ **BY**_ _ **B.O.B**_ _ **! You will NOT regret it, it's the best song in the universe, hands down!**_

 _ **With that, see you next chapter,**_

— _ **Stefan422**_


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